Gold, Power and black trousers
by L.A. Riverburn
Summary: And a fair bit of coincidence. Ranma and Nabiki recall events that led them to their controversial, unlikely and divisive bond that is not quite fluffy, but a wild clash of wills.
1. Ranma and Nabiki, Not meant to be

**Gold, Power, and Black Trousers**

Based on the creation of Rumiko Takahashi, Ranma 1/2

written by Riverburn

Version 1.4

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Gold, Power and black trousers ... and a bit of coincidence. Ranma and Nabiki recall events that led them to their controversial, unlikely and quite uncommon bond that is not quite fluffy, but a wild clash of wills

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Short Story from Ranma's point of view. Not a real story, but more a summary of one that leads to a certain situation, namely one where Ranma and Nabiki, contrary to logic end up together, both as in character as possible.

though using a couple that would faster kill each other then share a bathroom, this story is not genious, renewing or any of that. In fact it uses quite a few cliche's, but the result might be a bit different.

Version 1.4: reworked some other problems and now actively included Ranma's curse. maybe a reread is not a bad idea. it's a good story anyway.

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Idly I thumbed through the stack of papers lying in front of me. Afterwards I spun around with the chair before my eye fell on her stapler. It was simple and black claiming it could staple 86 papers. I contemplated the ingenious device for a second before putting it back.

I leaned over the desk resting my head in my arms and observed the office. I shivered slightly at the cold touch my bare torso made with the wooden desk. I got out of bed in the middle of the night, and only wore black trousers.

It was a tasteful office, with brown hard-wooden furniture decorating the walls. The whole radiated warmth and cosiness. I wasn't exactly keen on cosiness – not the thing men kept himself busy with –, but here I made an exception. I could easily understand why she felt comfortable working here. The paintings and leather sofa added a nice touch.

Still, I would've expected something different from her, more modern, smoother and sharper. Not that it looked old fashioned, but it wasn't exactly modern as well.

She tried to explain me once, or more accurately, tried to give an excuse, but I didn't really understand her. Then again, she didn't really try hard, she just said she liked it, and if I didn't I could shove my opinion where the sun don't shine.

Recalling the argument, I chuckled lightly. That was more or less how she always finished arguments whenever I gave my opinion. And of course telling me that no one asked my opinion, which was technically true, but then I never shut my mouth.

I spun the chair 180 degrees, got myself comfortable in a lotus position, and softly pushed myself away from the desk towards the large modern window behind the desk. It showed a small concrete garden with plants and bushes in it. Not bad, but too little space, certainly with those eight skyscrapers in the direct vicinity. There was hardly any breathing space, not only the concrete environment, but also the community as well as the government. All were so competitive here in Singapore, so set on achieving. Coming from me, Japanese, that sounded absurd, but it was true. However, I guess being a city-state; it doesn't give people many choices.

I rotated the chair another 180 degrees, again facing the desk. I saw a biro lying on the desk, decided to play with that a bit, and in the meantime wondering what I was doing in this concrete forest.

It all began when I had to decide what I would do with my life. Many people expected me to marry a Tendo and take over the dojo and teach kids the Anything Goes. That was for a long while also the image I had, well if I bothered to form an image. Usually I just didn't had a clue what I'd do.

What I eventually ended up doing sort of happened on its own accord. At a certain point I was studying at university, really not liking it. It was too boring, too repetitive and the chaos inherent in my life was painfully absent. I once even purposely changed into female, but without any effect, they only cared for their boring courses.

I'd think I'd be happy that people for once left me alone, still one fine day after another excruciatingly boring day I got a visit from none other than Kiima. I could almost sense trouble and warmly welcomed her, offering a soda, asking with what I could do to help her today. And without really thinking it through, I went and helped as I usually do. I know I had responsibilities but hey, I'm supposed to help those weaker than me, which more or less means everyone. They had some problems with a clan I never really heard from, but also resident in Bayankala Range, the LinLan.

Since I destroyed Saffron, the Phoenix's morale dropped, and the LinLan took this opportunity to invade them. Those guys were strange, obsessed with living on the ground. Their whole fighting style was incredibly limited, so it wasn't that difficult to convince them to stop pestering the Phoenix, me being the aerial expert in combat. Whenever things got to tight I'd go up, and attack again.

One might guess that after that umpteenth adventure in China I'd simply return to Japan, one would guess wrong. Having the choice between staying with the phoenix for the time being, or going back to university, I choose the Phoenix. Was that a smart? Was it responsible? I don't really think a lot about that, but even if it wasn't, I didn't have so much going for me in Japan anyway. My relationship with Akane wasn't going too well, I didn't like university, and missed trekking through China and trekking in general.

Comfort of civilization might feel great at first, but having travelled all my life, my living space was as big as the world. At university, I started feeling the effect of living in such a small place. I felt suffocated, I needed more space, just Tokyo wasn't enough for me anymore.

By that time, I was 21, so I had a bit more spine, and if my indecisive mind actually made up its mind, I was going for it. I was still very impulsive, and in a certain way immature to just up and leave everything behind like that. Also of course arrogant to believe I'd be able to overcome everything, nonetheless I did. As I always tell myself and people around me, I've got a good reason to be arrogant, because simply put, I can be.

By far the greatest barrier for me was my honour. I'd be leaving Akane, someone I was honour bound to marry, someone I was even in a way in love with. Being a 21-year-old guy living in modern Japan Tokyo and having had to deal with years of university, makes you think about things - revalidate them - certainly when the person you are supposed to be bound to herself says it isn't working out.

Looking back, it amazes me I tried to keep my honour so long intact. Only a year after Akane had proposed a breakup did I decide to put my honour in the fridge. It wasn't an easy decision, but one I made nonetheless.

Since University didn't interest me, and friends weren't a good-enough reason to keep me in Japan I took off. And seeing where I landed the best decisions I ever made (but then I only make good ones).

At first, it was going from one weird town to the next, meeting people, and other artist, both Martial Artists like myself, as artists in other fields. It was a revelation because I soon discovered that magic is not all that uncommon as some people believe. I've seen people paint paintings that literally suck you in. I've tasted food that didn't look special but sure tasted magical – and it wasn't always good.

From China I travelled west to Tibet, then south to India. I've met monks from all sorts of religions and convictions, Martial Artists who had the most bizarre techniques that I happily, readily and as always easily learned. Of course here and there I was bound to change into female. This once happened when I stayed at a temple with only females. Who would know there was something like a female specific martial art, and that females had their own specialised ki-atack.

Usually I just travelled from town to temple to whatever came on my path, but sometimes I helped out. The people I helped like that were from every station and function. From poor peasants in a Himalaya mountain range to a group of soul searching balloons. Helping people doesn't sound that different from what I've been doing most of my life, but it did began to change when people started offering me stuff for what I'd done for them. Apparently helping out of the goodness of one's heart – like I do of course – isn't everywhere ingrained in society.

At first, I tried to refuse, but eventually I began to notice they felt offended, and hence I started accepting their gifts. Peasants usually gave me a big town meal; the more magical experiences resulted in diamonds, gold, silver and the occasional magical item.

In short, the more I travelled, the richer I got. It was absolutely not my intention, and most of what I had I gave to the poor mountain people. It can be an adventure on itself to force a Tibetan mountain townsman to accept a generous contribution to his village.

But no matter how much I gave, I ended up with more. Travelling with all that stuff was hardly possible, and regardless of how good I had become, I couldn't do what Mousse could. At one point I decided to just drop it somewhere, but eventually decided that with all those things I could do some good on a bigger scale. Thing was that although I'm pretty good at about everything, I knew very well I had no idea how I should do something like that, so I just dropped all the things off at mount Phoenix.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, however they made the wrong assumption that I was interested in gold and stuff. Actually, at first I had a mind of giving my stuff to them, but quickly realised – as they began doubling my hoard – that they weren't interested.

And so for a couple of years I went around the world, wherever I'd land, helping people out, solving problems and enjoying their hospitality. And as I said, I met all sorts of people, all sorts of creature, normal or magical, sometimes returning to Mount Phoenix to add stuff to my already extensive hoard.

Coincidentally one of these travels led me to Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, many caves, many mountains sticking out of the sea... and lots of tourism. No one knew however what was living under those mountains. I didn't at first either, but of course I had to fall out of one of those numerous touristic boats and some weird fish creature saw me change genders. It didn't take long before I made contact with them, and heard about their problem. And maybe for the first time I couldn't help them on my own.

I tried, I really did but for all of my social skills and graces I couldn't convince the local organisation to stop polluting Ha Long Bay (apparently me asking isn't good enough). I even went so far to change into female, and use all my big cute guns – big watery eyes, dainty fists – but without luck (It was weird really, the older I got, the less my cute act seemed to work, but the more I got hit on). They told me I should take it up with custom officials in Hanoi who send me to Hong Kong, China, north of Ha Long Bay.

And their came probably the biggest change. Imagine my surprise...

I suddenly straightened myself when I heard someone walking around. For a fraction of a second I extended my senses through Ki, and relaxed when I realised who was walking around. I was pretty sure I knew who, but you can never be sure enough. For all Singapore's insane laws and relatively low crime rate, it's not crime free, and it only takes a little effort to check who's walking around.

I wasn't surprised when I noticed the person walking around was bee lining for her office.

I leaned back in her comfortable office chair, and put my feet on her desk. I don't know why but she somehow got a kick out of that. I'd presume she'd hate it since I was placing my feet on furniture she constantly used, but then I was wrong. And Akane always called me the pervert.

I played a bit with the biro, waiting until she arrived.

It didn't take long, and when she entered, I couldn't help but grin.

She apparently had woken from a deep sleep, and still had drowsy eyes, a dozy expression, and a sort of dazed look. It was kinda cute. The thing that made it even cuter was that she hadn't put on a robe. Usually she uses an expensive silk robe when she gets out of bed – admitted leaving it open frequently – but I guess her sleepiness made her forget to put it on.

"Whaz are you doing here?" Nabiki asked still lingering in dreamland. She was rubbing her eyes with her delicate loose fist, and trying to get her eyes adjusted to the light.

"Come back to bed," she continued, slurring a bit and probably not completely aware of her surroundings.

"Hmm, actually, I was just recalling the time when we met," I answered softly, smiling a bit at her dazedness, her blinking, and trying to concentrate on me.

"Why would you do that?" she asked, her sleepy face showing hints of frustration at both the light and that she got out of bed because I felt like reminiscing.

"I dunno," I answered truthfully. "Perhaps because I see it as a fortunate event, perhaps I sometimes just like to think of old times," I finished looking at her bleary eyes, that still weren't adjusted to the light, and probably encountered troubles from the brain that really wanted to go back to bed.

"Hmm, okay," she said fuzzily. She looked behind her, probably weighting if she should go back to bed since I wasn't doing anything stupid and bad for business. Then she turned back to me and saw me sitting in HER chair with my bare feet on HER desk, playing with HER biro only wearing black trousers.

Her groggy eyes began to focus as she observed me. At first, it was kind of weird how something so rudimentary could have such an effect on her, but I'm used to it.

She slowly walked over to me, her eyes losing sleepiness with every step she took. When she stood next to me, she made herself comfortable leaning against her desk with her naked derriere.

"So where were you?" she asked, suddenly a lot more alert. I looked up and grinned at her.

"Actually, I was just about to meet you," I said, spinning my chair so I was looking at her. I had to put my feet back on the carpet, but that wasn't a problem, they were starting to tingle anyway.

"Ah yes, the thirty dice, all six," she said with a smile, also remembering the event. I don't know if it was her business nature that made her refer to it as a chance statistic or that she used to work a lot with chance statistics at school. She told me that calculating the likelihood of a certain situation is vital in business so probably the former. She actually called it 22 E 22 at first but since I didn't quite get it, she simplified it a bit for me.

Basically it means that the chance that she and I would've met is roughly as big as throwing thirty sixes in one throw. Nabiki is all for chances and exceptional uncalculated business prospects, which she says is the reason why she's so good. She sees when the dice is going to land on a particular number, or in her own words, she has a nose for opportunities and business.

"Mr. Hero got degraded from rescuing complete towns to lobbying for preserving the magical wildlife in Ha Long Bay," she said with a wide grin. "Wildlife that people don't even know about," she finished, helping me remember our first encounter after years. Coming from her it sounds really stupid, but that was indeed basically what I did and of course it wasn't stupid, just a different sort of challenge.

It wasn't the first time I'd visited a big concrete city like Hong Kong. I'd been to Shanghai and Peking as well, and of course living for such a long time in Tokyo also helped. So being in a city like that wasn't that surprising, and I could adapt myself easy to city life. As always I adjust as easily as water, and hence decided to wear sunglasses whenever in the city.

Anyway, the company that owned all those small touristic boats was situated somewhere in a big office flat on the 30th floor. So up I went, and was welcomed by a cranky woman sitting behind a desk supposedly welcoming people but doing a shitty job. I told her my problem, she sighed deep, looked at me – I had this distinct feeling she wanted me to go away – and sighed again before calling someone on the phone. She pointed to some seats and said that I had to wait a bit.

To make a long story short, I met the man but he couldn't do anything about it, saying that he had no control over what those people did, but he'd be sure to say something about it. I couldn't shake the feeling back then that I was played for a fool. Anyway back down I was about to exit the building when...

"22 E 22," Nabiki said again, smiling down at me. Instead of leaning, she sat now on her desk, wiggling a bit to get more comfortable on the dark cold wood of her desk. "Thirty dices all sixes, that are the odds I'd place on meeting you there. I wouldn't have bet on it, I even didn't bother thinking about it. but I guess it worked out alright," she said nonchalantly, a simple sharp smile on her face. For those who knew her, a brilliant radiating smile. I was one of those people, and heck maybe one of the only, and hence returned it one of my own smiles.

"Imagine my shock when you bumped into me at one of the more prestigious commercial centres of Hong Kong," she continued, recalling how we met. "A lot of business is done by many mathematical formula, but however you look at it, you can never completely predict how the customer will react. Luckily, many algorithms have been made to border the possible reactions of the people. Of course, you must defy common logic again, and do the thing that is absolutely not possible."

I thought about that for a second. I agree that us meeting was as unlikely as a pigeon discussing Porter's Five Forces – another one her theories. I smiled and looked up at her.

She stopped, and gave me one of her smug looks. She skipped over to the middle of her desk, and with her legs wheeled the chair so that it facing the desk, hence she was able to put her feet on the armrests. My view improved considerable.

"Regardless of chances, you bumped into me," she then continued, smiling her characteristically calculated smug smile. "it was quite an eventful day. I had made one of my first major blunders, investing in something that didn't work, and I was more than a little frustrated. Bumping into someone really didn't help my mood. I wanted to scream at you, to bloody watch out where you were going."

"But then you saw my face, and you stopped shoving and insulting," I finished with gleefully. "Guess I still only need my face to stop women dead in their tracks."

She actually didn't know I was outside Japan. For all she knew I was still a university student in Tokyo. Oh, she heard stories from Akane about me not returning, but she didn't pay them much heed. At that moment, she was trying to make career, which wasn't too simple, and requested a lot of moving around.

After the bump she quickly composed herself. I was surprised to find her in Hong Kong, but didn't let it bother me too much. I didn't know a thing about chances, save that there was little chance of meeting here there. Still I met her, and that was that. We decided to drink something in a local pub.

She asked me what I was doing here, and I answered truthfully that I was looking for a way to get people not to throw all their trash in Ha Long Bay in Vietnam. I told her in one breath about the mythical sea folk that lived in the bay. Nabiki had stared at me for a second, then took a measured sip from her red port and eventually sighed. She eventually asked me if it was any use of not believing what I just told her. I didn't really get what she was referring to, and just shrugged.

She had then just sat back, and shook her head. She told me that if I hadn't had money I wouldn't be able to achieve anything. Then I had told her smiling and grinning that if money was the only problem there really wasn't any.

That got her interested of course. I explained about all the gold, silver and diamonds I had. Not surprisingly, she didn't believe a word I was saying.

So, I went back to the Phoenix people, took a gold statue with me, went back to Hong Kong, and showed it to Nabiki. Since she worked in the same building as the one where I tried to get people to take care of Ha Long Bay, her office wasn't hard to find.

"The second time we met, you just strolled in my office and placed the bloody golden statue on my desk as if it was a coffee I'd ordered, carrying that ever present nonchalant smile of yours, as if doing the impossible was an everyday occurrence for you," Nabiki said with a pensive smile, remembering the event.

"At first I didn't know what to believe. You don't just make a golden statue magically appear, but then you don't seem to know what impossible is. Anyway, I was almost afraid to touch it. Here you were, Saotome Ranma loser number one in my book, with a golden statue. At your insistence, I picked it up and began contemplating it. Obviously, I had to make sure this was real gold. So as soon as I had my break we went over to an expert"

"19.467 karate," she continued, recalling the event with businesslike precision. "Mixed with copper for sturdiness as per usual, but mixed on a too low temperature. Regardless, it was enough to rescue Ha Long Bay. I was in the middle of trying to recover from a crisis, so at that time I hadn't time to sell it for you," she said before I took over.

"You were really fickle," I reflected. "On one hand you hardly wanted to touch it, on the other hand you didn't allow me to sell it myself, afraid my assumed," and I emphasized 'assumed'. "Incompetence might lose me a few yen. So you send me over to your flat where I had to stay while you tried to convince your boss not to fire you." I clicked my tongue, and looked at her speculatively before continuing

"I remember that week pretty good. You always got yourself stressed somehow, woke up at impossibly early hours in the morning, even for me, and came back around 10 pm," I remarked, subtly smiling. I knew she had hated that week, not only because she had some problems at work.

"Yeah, and I remember someone always butting his nose in business that were not his," she bit back with hints of frustration, but before continuing in her usual contained frustrated way, she stopped and considered her answer for a second. "Well, 'weren't his' at that moment. I remember that after three days you couldn't stand it and you started making my meals, and almost physically forced me to eat them." she tried to sound indignant, and being Nabiki, she'd succeed if I didn't know better.

"Yea, eating junk food really is not the way to go about this, and I learned some pretty 'magical' recipes on my travels. But you admitted, eventually, that it did you a world of good."

"So it did, but chaining me to my chair is a bit excessive to make me eat no? Anyway, after a week or so, when most damage control was done, we went to get you some money," she said with a smile, her previous frustration gone with the wind.

"Yeah, first apparently we needed to get me a bank account. But I still have no idea why we needed to go to Quam Limited as a bank? It looked really creepy, cold, the people were unfriendly, and wasn't even really near your place" as I said that Nabiki shook her head.

"I'm not going to explain you why we needed to go to that particular Bank, safe to say I had my account already there, so might as well open an account for you. One giant plus is that you can deposit gold there, without in fact depositing in," I was about to interrupt, even though I knew I wouldn't understand it even if she tried to explain. "I'm not going to try explain again. Anyway, we went to a broker, got you around 700.000 HKD (90.000USD – 1 pound gold is 8070USD) and..." Nabiki stopped and looked at me curiously.

"You know, I never asked a contribution for my efforts. I guess with all what was going on I forgot," she eventually said speculating about possibly venues to make extra money.

"Right, you ain't got any right to complain, you got enough money from me later when we got the rest exchanged," I said indignantly.

"Don't you worry your handsome head about that. You already got me that money in more than one way," her mysterious smile reminded me of certain things. It was creepy how she could just adjust the tiniest nuance in her smile and make you consider whatever she wanted you to consider. As a result, I took a quick look at what was at my eye level, gulped, got a little hotter, and looked back up at a smug looking Nabiki.

I composed myself, and considered what happened next. I thought we'd simply go back to the same man and offer him the money to keep the bay clean, but instead Nabiki had a better idea. We went to a professional river cleaning company, and with the government of Vietnam agreeing they went about to clean the river. And so another mission successfully accomplished.

Things however would never be the same. Nabiki knew about my treasure, and she wouldn't relent until I agreed to invest it. I told her I needed to a car or something to get all the stuff because it was simply too much for me to carry it all. True, I'm out of this world strong, but large awkward unworkable stuff is, regardless of strength, large awkward unworkable stuff.

The fact that I couldn't carry it must've meant that I had an insane amount, so with that in mind Nabiki wanted to see my hoard for herself. So she and I travelled to the Phoenix people. I'd think she'd be most amazed about all the magic around here. But that only made her breathless and stare in awe. The gold, silver and gems however made her swoon.

For safety reasons, she told me, it might be best to exchange these items one load at a time. So together we went back, plus a bit of gold.

For reasons I am totally unaware off, I couldn't just exchange it all at the same time. Again Nabiki had tried to explain it to me, in that same 'I'm talking to a five year old who isn't going to understand it no matter how simple I make it' kind of voice, and I again had nodded and acted as if I understood all, and eventually asked the same questions again. At that point Nabiki took the stuff out of my hands, placed them in the guestroom and told me not to touch it till "the flux has gone low again", or in words I could understand, till she said I could sell it, using a lot of expressive hand movements to make sure she got her point across.

This required me to stay a lot in her flat. Not that I minded, it was a pretty decent flat, but a little smaller then, for example, a nice old fashioned temple. I tried filling my days with seeing the city, making her food, and I even got so awfully bored I started cleaning her flat.

"Keeping you in my flat was probably not a bad idea at all," Nabiki said with that lopsided mysterious smile of hers that told you she had a secret. I got to know that smile pretty well, and knew what it meant, most of the time. "I mean, at first it was just nice to have some company, even if it was one of the idiots from back home. But as soon as you started cooking regularly and cleaning the place up, it really got better."

She linked her feet under the armrests and rolled the office chair towards her, incidentally giving me a close up. I could help but look down for a fraction of a second. "But what really made me cheer my decision to keep you was when I came home looking like a wreck," she said, a sensual smile on her lips. I couldn't tell if it was because she caught me glancing or what was about to be told.

Together with her smile came burning eyes. Years ago I'd stammer, falter, and jump out of a forty-floor building. Then she moved to a higher floor and I couldn't jump out of her flat anymore. So instead of fleeing, I met that challenge head on. As a result, I was now far calmer, could casually link my hands, and return her smile with one of my own lopsided ones – very much unlike hers.

"You know, you actually are lucky I can so easily read ki levels and stuff like that, otherwise I'd never 've done something like that, certainly not with you," I said, continuing her story.

"Because..." she asked, frowning slightly, but still with fire in her eyes.

"Because you were scary back then, well, you're still scary, but then I didn't know how to handle that. But your Ki paths were so screwed up that it amazed me you could still walk. Since it's been my job to help those weaker than me, I sighed and helped ya out a bit" I finished, leaving my story open for her to continue.

"And how!" she exclaimed, breathing deeply. "My goodness I still can't get over it how good you were," her amazement was clear, but as always contained. Nabiki had a tight reign on her emotions. "You didn't even touch me. I was lying on my sofa belly down, happy to die with stress and strain when you suddenly sat next to me. At first, I got annoyed – I wanted to have some alone time dying – and irritably asked what the fuck you were doing. Then seeing you frowning while checking me all over like some steak gone bad, I was about to hit you even though I'd probably break my hand in the process. I was lashing out, when suddenly I felt a puncturing pain in my back. At first I thought that my back strain had caught up with me, but then I knew that pain to be continuous, contrary to the sharp repeating punctures I felt then. I wanted to scream out in pain, but instead grabbed the sofa's arm rest, bit on it, and clutched it tightly between my fists. And you kept on looking at me back, sometimes shaking your head, clicking your tongue and sighing."

Remembering all that, Nabiki regarded me with a frown. It was some time ago, and time probably healed the wounds, but she probably did remember that it had hurt a lot.

"Then you started massaging my back," she continued losing the frown, setting for a simple smile. "That hurt even worse. You hardly touched me, but the pain was immense, a bit as if you were putting arrow points directly in my back. And that lasted for an hour before you left me alone to die in absolute misery," she stopped and pensively looked at me.

"The next morning though," she went on, ticking her delicate finger against her chin. "I felt rejuvenated, and amazingly better. I had no back strain whatsoever, no pain in my arse, no pain anywhere and I felt great. Also I was incredibly hungry since I hadn't eaten the night before, but then you had to come out with some weird looking stuff that glowed."

I chuckled remembering that scene, it was a combat of wills, and since she was still under the effect of a rather crude ki massage – or in my own words a tedious job of untying completely bad placed ki-streams – I had won, and she ate my version of the "Wind in the Heart" technique.

"It had no taste, that's what I remembered about it, but it was like a soft version of coffee. I felt even better, was not hungry anymore, my grogginess was completely gone, my mind felt razor sharp. The fact that I could calmly eat it since I had more than enough time to get ready added to the fact that I knew this was going to be a good day," her grin widened, remembering how those first days went.

"And it was a great day," she emphasized, laughing a bit at the memory of how good it actually went that day. "My heart was doing that weird 'I'm feeling well' thing and it was grand. I convinced my boss to give me another contract, and had some real progress with that, phoned people, met some even it was super. I was elated when I came home, even though you had chosen to destroy half my flat in search for some money because you fancied an ice cream. Then you came up to me, and said I had screwed up my streams again and that I had to lie down again. At first I had no idea what you were talking about, said that I was absolutely perfect, but of course you just had to put me on my sofa, and started – as you call it – untangling my streams. It hurt less than the day before. However the whole touchy touchy thing was completely different. Instead of pain, I felt a sort of warm soothing feeling," her grin was wide. She knew this soothing feeling all too well; nowadays she got it practically every day, contrary to the pain which hopefully is only some bad memory.

"And of course, I felt better, sharper, infinitely better than before you started. So we went out to buy you some ice-cream, that you still, even today, have to do as a girl."

"uhuh," I shook my head. "You ain't gonna catch me as guy buying ice-cream."

"It is weird really," she suddenly began again pensively looking at me. "When you first came to Nerima, I'd thought of you as a gender changing complete idiot without a future. Now here you are, still practically the same man as in Nerima. You've hardly matured, you're still as naive as the average kid, you're still obsessed with manly things mainly martial arts, you're irresponsible, you're arrogant, as stubborn as a stone and..."

Suddenly I felt the cold sensation of cold water. Sighing I combed my now red hair out of my eyes, contemplated my naked wet breasts and looked balefully at Nabiki, who found my surprised expression very funny indeed. She was laughing loudly.

"What was that for?" I asked indignantly.

"To proof a point," she said, still snickering. "You haven't changed at all, those are the exact words you use whenever someone splashes you." she waited a while, looking at my naked breasts, a strange smile on her face. "and...," eventually, she continued "and you still change into a girl, and still aren't hot about it." she changed tone going from explaining to wonder. "Every normal person would assume we couldn't live together without one of us going insane, but in some way your persistent arrogance and your stubborn but contagious optimism made me let you stay."

"Of course," I continued for her. "All that gold and the free massages probably helped," I smiled kind of posh, but the situation called for it. The fact that I was a wet, half naked girl at the moment ruined it a bit.

She frowned and looked at me indignantly. "That's not why you're still here and you know it," she said as if she didn't realise I was joking. She realised it well enough.

"When I think about it, I guess your constant defiance of my opinion and actually on anything I said intrigued me. In one way, you were twice as easy to coerce as other men I dated, but then you just coerced me as badly, not using the same subtlety as me. No, you just put spoonfuls of some magical brew in my mouth while I was telling you I wouldn't eat it. and you continued doing exactly that as I continued saying I I'd be damned if I'd eat another bite, completely ignoring me, just waiting until I'd open my mouth for another lovely spoonful," she shook her head remembering one of our clashes.

"I'd think you'd settle if I kept my mouth shut, but of course you had to make conversation, and the moment I'd open my mouth, another bloody spoonful. Then you smiled and told me I could eat it myself or you'd simply find some other way to feed me, as if you were telling me you had a wonderful night sleep," she stopped, and got thoughtful about something.

I regarded her silently, waiting for her to make her conclusion, still with the Biro in my hand – luckily not wet.

"You know what changed in you? You're not intimidated anymore. That's it," she suddenly exclaimed loudly. "Years ago in Nerima you'd always get all squirmy in social situations, and couldn't for the life of you persuade people to do something you for once liked."

At that point, I had to interrupt for some serious damage control. "Hey, I'm never intimidated by anyone, by nothing, okay?" I mean, my honour as a self respecting martial artist was on stake here.

"Oh no?" she suddenly slurred, looking at me with those burning eyes. Shiite, I knew what she was referring to.

"You remember that day when you came back from one of those daft adventures of yours? Around 9 months after we've bumped into each other. You were gone for a week or so, and you decided to come by just to see me," at this point she decided to get off the desk and make herself comfortable in my lap, and didn't let the fact that I was female bother her one bit. This more than anything made me realise how right she was. Years ago I'd flip if a woman climbed in my lap, I'd flip if I myself was female, I'd die if she was naked like Nabiki was now. Now I just moved around so that she could make herself more comfortable, smiled a fake naive smile and told her I had no idea what she was referring to.

"One single peck on your cheek and you were of the charts hysteric, you even named Akane at one point. If that isn't intimidated, what is?" I raised a sceptic eyebrow at her assumption that I was intimidated, even though I knew perfectly well I was scared shitless at that moment.

"Who says I wasn't just trying to play 'hard to get'," I said trying to sound as neutral as I could.

"Ranma," she breathed with a smile. "Another thing that hasn't changed is your total lack of acting skills. People usually don't jump 67 floors down just to maintain some serious overrated dignity," I had to concede at this point.

"You sure couldn't get me could you?" I said smiling wide at my own joke "But okay, so I was a little intimidated back then, that's all over now," I deftly said.

"Well Yeah," she answered, musingly "I guess so. Although it's still fun to talk you into stuff because you simply don't know how to say no," she finished with a cute smile.

"Then I think it's fun to force you into stuff because you're simply not strong enough... and," I said in one breath "that sounded really wrong, and I didn't mean it like that."

The most horrendous thing of all was that I felt that familiar feeling creeping up on me that if she was going to act all annoyed, I had a perfect one way ticket to being intimidated once again.

"You see," she said with a real smile of amusement. "You're brilliant, I don't even have to say anything and you're starting to get uncomfortable on your own accord and I can say anything absolutely anything and you'll feel intimidated," she was almost laughing now, a heartfelt laugh, and I couldn't help but smile.

"Ranma," she eventually said "Don't ever change," and with that leaned further down to plant a soft lingering subtle kiss on my female lips.

"Don't worry," I replied. "I'm perfectly fine as I am; I'm not going to change," I said, and afterwards coerced the conversation in a different direction "What made you actually kiss me?" I was actually curious now, since from that moment, it all went insanely fast.

She scratched her scalp, trying to remember all what had happened back then.

"Well, since we had to transfer all that gold into money for you project 'Save Earth, start by magic', you stayed with me quite a while. Like I told you, I hoped you wouldn't be too long with me since I remembered the destruction you attracted, but then you began taking care of me, and I actually quite liked that. The cooking, the cleaning, the massages and the conversation.

Talking with you was really unlike other conversation I had, but it was in a way a liberating to talk about the absurdity of a bored dragon claiming he invented solitaire because who else would invent such a thing then an eternal, and eternally bored dragon, instead of finances, stock ratings, brokers and whatnot.

Then you surprised me by being actually cultivated. You knew how a stereo installation worked, a TV, you ate fast but still quite decent, you even wore some fashionable clothes at times. I always thought of you as a barbarian, but I guess I never took the opportunity to look a bit closer. You might not know how economics work and stuff, you're English is at best flawed, you couldn't tell what or who Yves Saint Laurent, Emporia Armani or Prada is, you don't know anything about popular music or movies... and still, you have an opinion about art, you can tell me what you like as music, and you adore theatre and even saw some sort of opera in a backward mountain town.

Then you surprised me by actually having an opinion, and being adamant about it. Not only did you discuss things with me and debated your arguments, but you sometimes outright told me what to do because you simply knew better. You'd think I'd throw you out the first chance I got seeing how you forced some thing on me, but I didn't.

Instead, I just sat silent letting you feed me your weird stuff while wondering about you.

I guess six factors made me take action. The first one was when I invited that friend of mine after a month or two who also had some serious stress and I proposed you'd give her a massage. Of course she came back for more. I didn't mind until she began seriously hitting on you. I had told her before you were a friend and hardly that, so she considered you free. I stopped inviting her and never let people presume you were free ever again.

The second factor was when I realised I just got on the sofa all-naked safe a towel, and asked if you could give me a serious massage. It didn't work because you suddenly felt like another adventure and was out of the window faster than I could utter 'What the...'. both the fact that I didn't mind showing my body to you and that it really bothered me that you had taken off like that again heighted my rising suspicion

The third factor was when I moved to a higher floor to keep you from always jumping out of the bloody window. Then the fourth factor was when you did actually, after four months, gave me a skin on skin massage and I felt more than just rejuvenated.

The fifth factor was after a month or five of having met you, your frequent absence in search for the world began to bother me. I wanted your food, even if I didn't like it, I wanted your massages, I wanted your intriguing conversations and wonderful stories. Hell, I didn't even need all those things, I just wanted you in my flat.

The thing was that you were clearly not ready, and every time I tried to move a little closer you took two steps back. However, I have to say, that didn't take so long. I guess you were trying to be more comfortable with me."

"Well, I wasn't really trying," I answered. "I guess I just gradually got more comfortable, without really realising it. At first it was really weird when you'd suddenly jumped in my arms when I'd come back, or just suddenly lean on me interested in what I was reading. But I guess realising it actually felt pretty good helped me not to be so awkward in situations like that. Seeing as there wasn't anyone ready to chop my head off also helped," she smiled, nodded and continued.

"Well, there you go. After 6 or 7 months, I was pretty sure there was something more than a lingering sense of friendship. However, with you always adventuring, it took some time before I got closer to you. But then when you told me you came back because you missed me... well, I guess that was the sixth and final factor, and I kissed you, fast and demure, because I knew you were going to freak."

"Okay, I freaked alright, but I did immediately did take the elevator back up, and apologized," I said my hand caressing her professionally cut hair.

"You did, and I was really happy you did, because we had the most cosy and brilliant evening afterwards," she finished, and looked at me as if trying to find answers in my eyes.

"Mind you, it took some serious time before you actually agreed to tear the clothes of my body," she said eventually with a frown.

"What?" I exclaimed shocked "It took only eight days after that peck. I wouldn't call eight days a long time."

She shook her head dismissively. "I was incredibly hot for you. Then, eight days is an eternity. I could've been playing solitaire with your friend the dragon."

I grinned a bit. "Dunno, I think he'd probably play somewhere else complaining about the temperature being too high near you, he's whiny like that."

I looked away from her for a second, and then looked at her again. "You don't have to work tomorrow, do you?" she nodded a slow affirmative, a smile already creeping on her face.

"Because, you know, speaking about being hot, you being all naked on my lap like this, there are a certain few things I want to do before we go back to bed."

I slowly straightened myself, holding Nabiki close to me. She locked her legs behind and rose with me. I gently placed her on the desk, gave her a small kiss, and grinned. She didn't mind if I was male or female, but if she could choose she'd have me male, but the kitchen was too far, I guess we'd have to slowly advance towards said room.

* * *

1 HKD (Hong Kong Dollar) is 7.8 USD (United States Dollar).

1 pound gold is 8070 USD

The reason why Ranma couldn't just exchange all his gold in one go is because his gold isn't indexed. I don't understand it completely, but indexed gold is more or less just common money (albeit a lot). His gold statue isn't indexed and doesn't even have an easy way to index. the flux then is the inpact of the gold statue on the local gold price (but then I also read that gold prices don't fluactuate that much), it going down (since there is a larger quantity), but quickly stabilises. if he'd exchange his gold all in one go, he'd get less money per divisable object. I just added it for realism and something I think Nabiki would know, but in the end I really don't know anything about gold and stuff like that.

Porter's five powers are a way to evaluate costs and chances to succesfully sell.

Hope you liked it, and if you did, maybe there might be more in store for you. This particular story is finished, but I might ad snapshots here and there, trying to get the most out of Nabiki's and Ranma's complete contradictory character, letting Nabiki meet Hector, the whiny bored eternal dragon claiming he invented solitair, and Ranma having a business meeting.


	2. Business meeting as usual

**Gold, Power, and Black Trousers**

Based on the creation of Rumiko Takahashi, Ranma 1/2

written by Riverburn

Version 1.1

* * *

Gold, Power and black trousers ... and a bit of coincidence. Ranma and Nabiki recall events that led them to their controversial, unlikely and quite uncommon bond that is not quite fluffy, but a wild clash of wills

* * *

A short Story where Ranma and Nabiki have a business meeting. Regardless of the 1.1 version, still unpolished

* * *

"So tell me again how exactly you talked me into this?" demanded a frustrated female Ranma wearing a breathtaking, characteristically red silk cheongsam with a flowing gold serpentine dragon its mouth ending at her bosom.

"What are you complaining about, I'm wearing the exact same thing," a bemused Nabiki answered. She had to admit, the dress looked super on Ranma.

"One," Ranma said, holding one delicate finger up ending in a painted and manicured nail. "You are not wearing the exact same thing. You are wearing the normal version; I'm wearing the pervert edition. Two," another finger followed showing a same expertly manicured nail, "You happen to be a woman, I happen to be…" before Ranma could finish his phrase Nabiki talked right over her.

"A woman as well, and quite a specimen I must say. How do you get your breasts naturally so firm and voluminous without having them sag?" Nabiki asked in apparent wonder. One could question the sincerity, but it at least got Ranma push her breasts forward and looking proudly at her bosom, seemingly forgotten what she was talking about.

"Yeah, they are quite round, aren't they. Quite firm and big as well," Ranma began mumbling, unnecessarily pushing her breasts upwards to accentuate them. Suddenly she froze as she realized what she was doing. "There, you did it again, that's how you got me into this bloody dress in the first place," Ranma suddenly exclaimed, pointing one of her perfectly polished nails balefully at Nabiki.

Nabiki grinned, and shook her head. "But you do look good in that dress Ranma. I got these two similar dresses at a discount. I could never fill up that dress like that like you could," Nabiki said with an encouraging smile.

She had no problem admitting that this was not only to convince Ranma but plain truth as well. Ranma had grown into a healthy beautiful looking woman. The red hair, frank look and general annoyance whenever she was wearing revealing woman clothes, which men misinterpreted as hard-to-get, made her an insanely pretty asset when trying to close deals.

Nabiki herself was wearing, as Ranma exclaimed, the demure version. Where Ranma's was rather stretchy and accentuated all her marvellous curves, Nabiki's was more loose, both due to the dress itself as due to her more modest (but certainly not undersized) womanly attributes. In addition, Ranma's dress went from the hips straight down and generously accentuated her hips, and would've been very restrictive for her legs, if it weren't for the side slits that went up just under Ranma's black lace panties. Nabiki's dress on the other hand was more traditional and from the hips widened into a simple dress with subtle beautifications.

Another difference was the top. Although both made to emphasize the bosom, and had exactly the same colour, Nabiki's closed at the back with a zipper; Ranma's closed at the front with buttons.

At those buttons Ranma was currently looking at. She was trying to find a not-exactly-missing button. She mumbled something about returning it or fixing it herself.

"Leave it Saotome, it's supposed to be that way," Nabiki said stroking the soft fabric, trying to undo Ranma's fidgeting.

Ranma gave her a sceptic look, "Look at this," she said irritably. "You can see my breasts through this opening."

"Exactly," replied a smiling Nabiki.

"Now, come'on, we're already late as it is. Being fashionable late is one thing, arriving twenty minutes late on a contract deal is another," Nabiki noted, checking herself one last time in the mirror.

"That's something I don't get," Ranma idly wondered, still trying to hide her revealing breasts. "Usually you talk me into wearing tight business suits whenever you need a contract signed. Why are we wearing dresses for a contract deal?"

"Because," Nabiki replied, adjusting some make-up in the mirror. "This guy has an obsession for dresses, and more specifically Chinese styled dresses. I doubt it'll hurt my credibility if we show up like this. Besides, at this hour you're not supposed to wear a business suit."

"Alright," Ranma exclaimed suddenly chipper.

Nabiki turned around to look at a confident smiling Ranma, looking her straight in the eyes. This was one of Ranma's most characteristics smiles, almost completely identical to those when he still lived in Nerima. A smile usually reserved for combat. A small lopsided smile, eyes that sparkled, eyebrows came together at the bridge of her delicate nose, but sprang up from there.

Nabiki swallowed hard, and had to concentrate to keep her face as straight and neutral as possible.

"What now?" she asked outwardly perfectly calm, but inside getting a tad hot. It wasn't just Ranma's confident masculinity that set her off, but the intelligence in those eyes was obvious.

"We'll get that contract for you," she said, her voice crystal clear, her confident smile shining, her eyes warm and almost radiating positivism.

"Of course we will," Nabiki replied with one of her own small smiles. Contrary to Ranma's her smile was calculated showing only a subtle sign of confidence whereas Ranma might be accused of arrogance. It wasn't always certain she'd get the contract. She missed quite some in fact.

With Ranma's help though, she hadn't missed any as of yet. Admitted, at first Ranma did more damage than good. Certainly the first time when he – at that time a she – wanted to beat up the second party. Ranma – Nabiki soon learned – meant when she said she didn't lose. Contracts were included, and Ranma invented the Anything Goes Saotome closing deals school of martial arts.

"Just so you know"

Ranma walked over to Nabiki, grabbed her hand and dragged her towards the door.

Nabiki felt electricity surging through her body as Ranma touched her hand. She followed steadily trying to regain some momentum. Sometimes she wondered about the boy turned girl.

It was easy to talk him into doing things in Nerima, it was easy when she first met him in Hong Kong, and it is still easy now. Ranma's naive, no matter if he's sixteen, eighteen or twenty-four. Ranma however, is not an idiot like he was when he was sixteen or eighteen. He knew pretty well what he was doing.

He or rather, she knew she was going to a business meeting to help her close a deal. She also realised she was not to fight, not to insult or anger the second party, and of course to look pretty. Five things the original Ranma might overlook

Another situation where he was well aware of was he was doing was his infuriating cocky smile. Men are expected to be confident. Indeed, women wait for men to come to them, something that requires self-reliance. Hence, confidence and poise is something they try to master from an early age. Take into account that women usually are attracted to confidence, and you have the reason why testosterone exists.

Ranma brought this art to a whole new level. Nabiki wouldn't be surprised if there was the Anything Goes Saotome look smug school of martial arts. The way, regardless of gender, he could look so damn cocky, so male was mind-boggling. Combine that with a natural incredibly handsome face and eyes that radiated intelligence (though not always supported by his actions), and he was, to coin the phrase, simply irresistible.

There were women who were attracted by sensitive men, some by caring, or men with humour and other yet felt attraction towards intelligence. Nabiki wanted a man who was as much man as she was a woman. Strangely enough, Ranma was such a man.

Nabiki was someone who placed a value on most things in live, if not all. Now, whenever Ranma flashed that macho overconfident smile of his, she felt heat spreading over her whole body. It was, after she had ripped his clothes off his body and tested her wares thoroughly, then that Nabiki priced Ranma. Safe to say, he was the best deal she had ever made.

It was simply amazing how thoroughly he satisfied her in every sense of the word, and the price she had to pay satisfied her even more. Who said you couldn't make a deal that had both price and product turn into profit – regardless if that was a contradictio in terminus?

Nabiki wasn't a woman who'd use the word love. Love would mean that Ranma had control over her. Not a romantic way to describe love, but then Nabiki was the last person to admit she had a romantic soul.

If she were to admit a price that wasn't essentially profit it'd be control. Ranma had control over her. The simplest example was that smile of his. One flash and she was on him like a bunny on steroids. But others things as well like dinner, movies, music, channels – those small things that you decide together. Ranma only had to mention he felt like okonimiyaki, and she felt herself thinking of a good okonomiyaki restaurant.

In a way, it was still a lucrative price. She eagerly surrendered control when he'd smile his Ranma smile, that didn't need explanation. But the smaller things like choosing a restaurant in function of what he felt like was in a way very gratifying. Of course, when she felt like pasta, they were going to eat pasta, but then Ranma was always perfectly okay with that.

She always thought that if she'd have a relationship it'd be based on lust. Though there was certainly a lot of that going on, sometimes smaller things also were just nice. Like eating out, or watching a silly show on the telly, or just cuddling.

"Now that's one hell of a TV screen!"

Ranma's awed comment interrupted Nabiki from her musing. She looked though the rear window at the new Orgean skyscraper boasting a twenty-meter long video screen.

"You've seen bigger in Hong Kong"

"Yea, but it still amazes me. I'm usually in the mountains; you don't even have a silly black and white telly there." Ranma turned back to Nabiki smiling. Ranma liked driving in a limousine through the busy illuminated city.

"Saotome, you're usually with me."

"Exactly, and you're lately not always in the city."

Ranma slumped down, enjoying the comfy limo seats.

"True enough."

Nabiki took a pensive sip from her vodka, while looking at the city zooming by.

"So, which sucker are we gonna scam now?"

Nabiki frowned and regarded Ranma authoritatively, shaking her head as a teacher.

"Saotome, for the umpteenth time, we do not scam our customers, we close a deal with them. Your idea of capitalism might be a tad negative, but that's no reason to think that every contact is by definition a scam."

Ranma snorted. "That's why we need to look pretty for him to sign!?"

"Looking pretty won't convince him, but it'll ease his mind." Nabiki smiled shrewdly. "See it as you fighting a girl. You don't hit girls, which gives girls an enormous advantage over you."

Ranma thought this over for a second before turning back to Nabiki.

"Alright then, so what kind of deal are we trying to close?"

Nabiki crossed her legs, and got more comfortable, taking another sip from her expensive vodka.

"The first party..."

"The guys that hire you?" Ranma asked, interrupting her.

Nabiki sighed, and gave Ranma a warning glare. "Yes, the guys that hired me, they make posters, and are expanding. While waiting for their new fixed cost complex to finish, they steadily want to increase production. So they're going to outsource this."

Ranma was drinking a simple soda, and while listening playing a bit with the ice-cubes. "And now you're going to try to make a deal to outsource this."

"Exactly, and please be careful. I've spend an awful lot of effort on this one. It was hard to find a poster company willing to bare the extra weight, let alone make a cost-effective deal."

Ranma gave her a confident smile and a thumbs up. "No worries. That deal's practically made!"

Nabiki smiled back at the glamorous looking redhead. She scooted closer, pushed aside part of Ranma's dress, and placed her hand on her naked knee. She leaned over and gave Ranma a sweet drawn-out kiss on the lips.

"I'm sure it is!"

Nabiki's eyes shone evilly in Ranma's own arrogant ones.

* * *

The place was a rather typical expensive restaurant. Classy but without anything unique, safe maybe that what they did, they did extremely good. The waiters were well-trained professionals that were both beautiful to look at as fully clothed and not meant to touch or provide any other service then to serve food.

It was a place where business deals often occurred. Because of its professionalism, dirty manipulating tricks didn't really work. Stuff like hookers were a big no-no in this place. Actually, Ranma was once almost thrown out. Only her big mouth and obvious resentment of the term "prostitute" made the proprietor relent (as well as the apparent property damage the furious redhead was willing to inflict on the place when Nabiki told Ranma what they meant with 'escort')

The man they had an appointment with was pleasant looking man, well in his forties with black greying hair. He had a fairly muscled posture but not intimidating. He was clearly of Eastern Asian descendant, more to the point, Chinese – which was not unusual in Singapore. He introduced himself as Fuhua, and his wife, a very pretty raven-haired woman somewhere in her late thirties, Meifen.

Nabiki noted with a smile that mister Fuhua appreciated Ranma's dress as well what made the dress curve.

"Saotome Ranma," Ranma offered in reply to Mr Fuhua. Though Ranma said her name just as Meifen, Fuhua and Nabiki did, Ranma's frankness and loose behaviour gave her introduction something blunt. Both Meifen and Fuhua seemed oddly pleased by that. It surprised Nabiki, usually her business partners were slightly offended by Ranma's over assertive, open and blunt character, still she pinched Ranma softly when they took their seats.

Ranma yelped and balefully looked at Nabiki "What was that for?" she rubbed her knee ostentatiously.

"I hope we have no made you wait too long?" Nabiki began diplomatically, ignoring Ranma. She was late, but he knew she was going to be late.

"Don't you worry about that. Tell me how are you?"

"I'm doing very good indeed, thank you for asking. And how are you?"

The conversation was shallow and courteous, both Nabiki and Mister Fugua inquiring about the other's well-being both on personal as professional level.

Through all this Ranma didn't say a word, and obviously bored, scanned the restaurant for the umpteenth time. Since she came here often, she knew it through and through. She picked up her glass and contemplated its content, then held it in front of the candle looking at the effect of the flame through the semi transparent blackish liquid.

Though Nabiki introduced Ranma as her colleague and business-partner, Ranma had no interest in this whatsoever. She joined because Nabiki had asked, but she had no idea what possible positive influence she could have on a meeting like this. For crying out loud she had insulted and challenged her customers on more than one occasion.

Then there were all those smiles and pleasantries. Ranma had tried to look pleased and content – just like Nabiki and the other businessmen – trying her damnest best to smile, but she just couldn't muster one for more than her attention span allowed.

Some other restaurants had playgrounds for the little kids. She wasn't a kid, and her pride wouldn't allow her to even near or look at it. Still it had been fun when she found herself looking at a silly Disney film, until Nabiki had dragged her back to her seat that is. Ranma had wailed and said she wanted to see what the evil witch would do, but Nabiki would have none of it. Hence Ranma had sulked that entire business meeting. For some reason Nabiki didn't mind and she had gotten her contract.

But there was no playground here, only some flatscreens showing information about Singapore Exchange. Surprisingly Ranma had a faint idea what all the numbers on the screen meant. In a rare strange mood, Ranma wanted to know a bit more about what interested Nabiki. She had blinked, and blinked again, she even went as far as to check his temperature. Eventually, after Ranma proposed to just drop it, she had explained a bit about "economics". He had listened, and though he didn't understand most of what she had said, he understood some things.

Regardless those numbers could hold her attention for very long. She turned back and saw Nabiki still talking pleasantly with Mister Fuhua about some nonsense.

"Boring, isn't it?"

Ranma suddenly looked in front of her where the sound had come from, and saw the raven-haired woman looking curiously at her. She had completely forgotten about her. She had a small smile and a rather weird glint in her eyes.

Ranma sighed "Incredibly. I don't understand why they just can't sign the bloody paper and be done with it."

This got the woman to giggle softly. At the sound of giggles, Nabiki turned looked at Meifen for a second before turning back to her conversation.

"Neither do I," she said with a big smile.

Then she continued asking her what she was drinking. Ranma held up her drink, showing the black brown colour of her beverage.

"A simple Coke" as Ranma smiled, the woman in front of her also smiled.

"You should try something else" She had a very sedated voice, but regardless had a certain edge. It was hard to say if she was suggesting or commanding Ranma.

Ranma laughed awkwardly. "hehe, sorry, I don't..." but before she could finish, Meifen had already given Ranma her glass and with her own hands direction the glass to Ranma's lips.

Ranma didn't notice both Nabiki frowning at Meifen unnecessary help, or Meifen's hand around her own. The taste was good, Ranma concluded. Very good. It tasted a bit like coke, but tougher, and with a very nice aftertaste.

Unconsciously Ranma licked her lip – not gone unnoticed by Meifen – looking happily at the drink.

"That's good. Tastes a bit like coke, also has the same colour. What is it?" Besides Ranma, all three noticed her sudden cheeriness.

"Picon mixed with a good sauvignon."

"Oh, well" Ranma smiled and felt strangely like laughing. "That's good then"

"I bet it is Saotome," mentioned a not too amused Nabiki.

"So tell me Ranma Saotome," Ranma turned her head at the sudden mention of her name. "I hear you are Miss Tendo's business partner?"

Ranma looked at the man with big round eyes, having no idea what he was talking about when it suddenly hit her "ehm, Yea I am"

"And what is it what you do?"

Ranma opened her mouth but no sound came out. She looked around her at Nabiki, who carried a big smile, at Meifen, who seemed curious as well, and then back to the man who had a gentle smile.

"Investor?" Ranma smiled awkwardly

The man nodded slowly "aah, interesting. You're private investor?"

"ehm no? Nabiki knows about it too," She tried hoping the man would stop asking her things.

"So it is a joint obligation deal?"

Ranma noticed Nabiki was nodding her head, hoping she'd say just 'yes', but Ranma felt somehow that the man was making fun of her.

Ranma's eyes took a dangerous glint "What are you insinuating pal?"

Ranma knew what an obligation was, and she knew what 'joining' meant, so it must've meant something like having obligations towards each other which would assume a relationship of sorts. Nabiki had often told him not to tell about their relationships. Her partners usually didn't have a problem with lesbianism, but she wasn't really, and didn't want to be regarded as one. Ranma couldn't but agree.

"ehm" The man began to sweat not understanding what he had said to set the young woman off like that. "That you two share obligations towards a fund or bank or somesuch organisation?"

Ranma's slammed her hands flat on the table. None of the service people looked up, it wasn't the first time. "What? Are you now implying we're some kind of escorts for the bank?"

Mister Fuhua had no idea how the young redhead in front of her could make that conclusion, but obviously, from the way she was staring menacingly at him, she could.

Since Ranma's first idea when hearing the word obligation was it's quite literal meaning, namely as duty or responsibility, and not the more economic term, namely a dept from an organisation towards a private or legal person.

Ranma didn't had such a positive view of banks, and having obligations towards such a crooked organisation could only mean one thing in her book. Something bad, really bad.

Before the man could endanger his life even further Nabiki intervened. "No, Mister Fuhua simply meant that we have something like stocks"

Ranma relaxed, but still regarded the man warily "oh," she took another gulp from her drink, frowned a bit at the strange taste and put it on the table again. "That's alright then."

Ranma wasn't however going to back down now.

"So what do you do Mister...?"

Ranma had already forgotten the guy's name.

"Fuhua, Mister Fuhua," he replied all smiles. "I make and sell posters for supermarkets"

Ranma however wasn't going to be convinced. "And what's on those posters?" Ranma's tone implied lots of posters with scantily clad ladies. Mister Fuhua humoured her and answered her with a same pleasant smile.

"Usually food or other products they sell"

"Aha, so you admit," Ranma suddenly exclaimed with a victorious smile, taking another gulp from her drink. "You've got other products on your posters. So tell me, what kind of other products are those?"

The man considered this for a second. "ehm, stuff like laptops, PDA's, bikes, microwaves, dishwashers."

Ranma was looking at the man expectantly but when nothing came, she slumped down. There was nothing she could imply.

Nabiki however gave Ranma a gentle elbow in the ribs. "Ranma calm down, Mister Fuhua just sells innocent posters, nothing to worry about."

"It is so sweet of you though to make sure that my husband's business isn't fishy" this came from a kind of drowsy smiling Meifen who was regarding Ranma in a way that made Nabiki's smile widen in an effort to disguise the grimace she actually wanted to show.

Ranma of course felt good at the praise. "That's normal, wouldn't want to do any business with jerks."

"You're right, people should care more for whom they are working for," the woman added.

"I do that all the time," replied Ranma, feeling very good, and taking and swig from her drink.

"I bet you do," the woman said smiling widely. "So what do you actually do?"

Ranma giggled. "Me?" and took another sip from her drink. "I safe the world"

"So you work for a humanitarian organisation?" asked Mister Fuhua again with that same encouraging smile. Ranma blinked as she regarded the man who didn't seem to have another other way to ask questions.

"What? No, I safe the world"

Nabiki had to strain a smile. "Miss Saotome here has her own idea of saving the world. She's quite picky on whom to safe."

Ranma glared at Nabiki. "What's that supposed to mean? I safe plenty of people."

"I bet she does," agreed the Meifen woman, getting a glare from Nabiki and a smile from Ranma.

This all convinced Ranma to take another swig from her drink. She noticed it was empty, and asked for another one. Nabiki looked at the drink, and at a grinning Ranma, and asked for the same thing. She noticed Meifen grinned, but choose to ignore it.

"What kind of people?" asked an eternal curious Mr Fuhua.

Ranma scratched her head, trying to find some way to answer this question.

"You know, all sorts of creatures"

"Creatures?"

"Yea, you know, like ghosts, spirits, watercreatures, all sorts of creatures."

"You're a priest?" asked the man incredulous. This got Nabiki to laugh out loud.

"What?! No, no, I don't work as a priest," Ranma said heatedly. Then she relaxed back in her seat. "Besides, if I was, I couldn't be hanging out of Nabiki here."

This stopped Nabiki's laughing dead on. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"A priest would have little business with you, now would he?"

Nabiki glared at Ranma's remark, at his grin, before remembering her place, and tried to relax again.

"Let us not get distracted. Maybe we could talk about what we came for." Nabiki smiled brightly, and demurely clasped her hands, looking at Fuhua, who in turn was incredulously looking at a frank Ranma.

"I'm intrigued, why would a priest not want to do anything with Miss Tendo here?" Mister Fuhua's question was genuinely curious this time.

"'fraid I can't tell you why." Ranma's grin said enough to fill a book.

Before they could continue their conversation, drinks came. Mister Fuhua was the only one not drinking a strange black, brownish drink. Ranma gladly took a swig from her drink, Meifen took a demure sip herself and Nabiki held her nose above the glass before turning to Ranma with an incredulous stare. Ranma grinned back at her.

"Please do Miss Saotome, we're all very curious," insisted Meifen, curiously looking at the pair of females in front of her.

Ranma looked for a moment at a frowning Nabiki. "Can't, she'd kill me"

Nabiki groaned, and took a sip from her drink, deciding that it was pretty good. It had a strange taste, almost like cola, but tougher. She knew it had alcohol in it, she also knew Ranma was drinking the same stuff, and she knew that Ranma had as much resistance to alcohol as the average lightweight kid.

But she couldn't very well take the beverage from her business partner.

"I wouldn't do something silly as that, now about the contract." Nabiki's attempt at changing the subject again failed miserably as Mister Fuhua was showing an interest in what Ranma was saying.

"You two have a pretty close business relationship, if she would kill you for a mistake."

"Business is serious business for her," Ranma said casually, taking another sip.

"It is, it most certainly is," agreed Fuhua. "You do not think business is serious?"

Ranma frowned and contemplated the question a bit before answering. "Not really, sure a lot of money depends on it I guess, but still. I sometimes compare it with fighting. Ya know, you always want to win, and business is the same I guess, you also want to win. But if your sole goal is to win, you lose perspective."

"But that doesn't make it less serious does it?"

"Sure it does." Ranma had the attention of all three other table occupants. Even Nabiki was interested in what her partner had to say.

"If you take it too seriously, you lose perspective. That's how I win my battles. Now, you gotta know I always win, no matter what. Usually my flexibility is more than enough, but sometimes I gotta get creative, and with a deadset serious mindset it ain't gonna work. So I guess it's the same with business. If you only think about the stupid signature, you ain't gonna get it."

Nabiki observed Ranma openly. She knew Ranma wasn't stupid, and this wasn't the first time he showed a tinkle of intelligence. Still, it didn't stop her being surprised whenever he did. It also didn't stop the heat washing over her. Intelligence much like confidence was a rather potent aphrodisiac with her. Of course it had to be Ranma who possessed both and juggled them like a drunk sailor.

Mister Fuhua regarded Ranma with a pensive stare for a moment. "That is an interesting theory Miss Saotome. Am I to assume you can fight?"

This got the Saotome man-turned-woman flexing her arms. "Can I fight? Mister, I'm probably the best."

And Ranma flashed his Saotome grin. She heard Nabiki choking on her beverage, the woman across her gasped and Mister Fuhua simply nodded in understanding.

Worried about Nabiki, Ranma began gently massaging Nabiki's back, and giving her some of her own drink to calm down some. Nabiki took the offered glass, and almost downed it on one go before returning it to a peeved looking Ranma who hadn't expected that she'd almost completely empty her glass.

Ranma didn't notice the fire burning in Nabiki's eyes, but then Nabiki was good in appearing cool, and Ranma was getting slightly off track. The Saotome heir was unknowingly pushing her buttons. Showing intelligence, showing the Saotome smirk and then to top it off touching her gently. Luckily Nabiki was nothing but professional. She cleared her throat, pushed her chair forwards, clasped her hands, and coolly regarded the rest.

Nabiki note though that Meifen probably did know her state of mind, if the small secret grin meant anything.

"So, what kind of style do you use Miss Saotome?"

Ranma gave Mister Fuhua one of her lopsided smiles. "The Anything Goes Saotome school of Martial Arts." Mister Fuhua could easily place the capitals that Ranma placed on each word.

"So you have an own Family school?"

"I sure do, one of the most powerful schools there is," Ranma stated as if it were a fact of the world.

"Interesting, and can you combine your family school with your business?"

"Sure I can," Ranma replied pleasantly, taking another sip. "Heck, I'm good, I can do whatever I want" that also was said as if it were a fact.

"Anything you want?" drawled Nabiki.

Ranma scowled. "Sometimes I can use a little help, but I bet I'd be able to figure it out myself eventually."

Nabiki took another healthy swig before gently laughing. Slowly her laughter died out to be replaced by a standard pleasant smile.

Nabiki turned to Mister Fuhua with a "So about those contracts."

"In what business are you two actually partners in? I assumed you were colleagues of some sort, or maybe a lingering contract deal, but I've got the feeling you've got quite an unusual business deal," Mister Fuhua said, ignoring Nabiki's pleas to get the contracts signed.

Ranma blinked blankly at Mister Fuhua "uh, what's our business again?" Ranma asked Nabiki curiously. "I know it has something to do with gold"

Nabiki massaged her temples and groaned. "We invest gold"

Ranma took another sip "exactly," she said with a smile. She looked at her glass, noticed it was empty and waved wildly at a waiter, pointed to her drink and raised three fingers. The waiter nodded signalling he understood the command.

"Gold is very beautiful indeed," the woman added. "What do you do with your gold?"

"Invest it?" Ranma answered, not knowing what more could be said about the gold. He gave it away, got money and that was that, nothing to it.

"But you don't make anything with it, like jewellery? It is a very lucrative business."

"Wouldn't know what to make with it actually," Ranma said hesitatingly. She glowered at Nabiki's grinning.

"Can we share your pleasure Miss Tendo?" The woman asked slow and warmly.

Ranma stared at Nabiki for a second, trying to figure out why she was laughing. Nabiki stared right back, deep into Ranma's eyes. Then it hit Ranma. "NO, she can't," she yelled decidedly.

"But she must," Meifen declared.

Nabiki contemplated telling. On one hand, she really felt like it. it would teach the martial artist. On the other hand, it was not professional; it was not on the subject and had in fact absolutely no business here.

"Miss Saotome has some of the most excellent and personalised jewellery created from her gold" Nabiki turned to Ranma with a pleasant smile. She took another healthy swig from her glass, while holding her glare, Ranma also took a sip from her glass.

"You're noz supposed to tell them," Ranma drawled frustrated with Nabiki.

"Miss Saotome, it is only decent to tell our partners what you do as business. Since you did have some wonderfully jewellery made, it is only fair to tell them," replied an amused Nabiki. Okay, so it was not professional, but something was clouding her mind. She was still hot, and now she was getting tipsy as well.

"Unfair." Ranma turned away from Nabiki, held her glass high together with Meifen and took another mouthful of alcohol.

Nabiki nodded, turned back to Mister Fuhua, and once again tried getting the contracts signed. "As much as my partners business interests me, I propose we go over the contracts and see if we can get them signed."

Meifen wouldn't let her though, and drilled Ranma some more. "What kind of jewellery do you make Ranma? you don't mind if I call you Ranma do you?"

Nabiki noted with grinding teeth the pleasant smiles the woman was direction at Ranma. She tried to keep her cool, tried to keep everything professional. She wanted to drink some courage but found her glass empty. She signalled a waiter for refills.

"Is no problem, but I don't make jewellery, but I once asked someone to make me a horse I guess."

Ranma stared at her glass thinking about the golden ornament of a wild jumping horse, a symbol of complete and utter freedom of movement to her. Someone suddenly grabbed her braid and with a forceful grip turned her head.

Ranma's braid was bound by the golden ornament in question.

"Oh, it's there. Haha, I forgot."

Nabiki sighed while holding Ranma's pigtail, showing the dazzling golden clasp in the form of a prancing horse. Both Mister Fuhua as Misses Meifen looked in awe at the small, subtle yet powerful image of the strong free horse.

Meifen was the first to speak. "Why a horse if I may be curious?"

"I'm a horse," Ranma declared with a grin.

"Miss Saotome means that in our native language, her name literally means "Wild Horse". Miss Saotome also has a tendency to live up to the name."

"Why do you say that?" Meifen asked genuinely curious.

"Hmm, I am not sure that is my place to discuss. The contract however is something I can discuss. Mister Fuhua what do you..." Nabiki's voice faltered, and tiredly she leaned her face on her hand, leaning on her elbow. Mister Fuhua was not paying attention.

As a matter of fact, mister Fuhua was in shock, looking at Ranma who was wildly grinning, and looking at Nabiki. Nabiki followed mister Fuhua's gaze, and saw Ranma looking rather weirdly at her.

Her grin was as wide as possibly could be, and kind of goofy.

"Something I can help you with Miss Saotome." Nabiki's reply was cool and distant, but she felt anything but. The way Ranma was so brashly looking at her with such an open honest heartfelt joyful grin that was not a little tinted with alcohol was making her nervous. Any moment now Ranma was going to say something stupid.

"I livess up to my name, don't I?" Ranma drawled, looking at Nabiki as if she was the most amusing thing.

"Yes, you... well, you do all sort of crazy stuff, or so you have told me." Nabiki was getting flustered, and noticed with not a little apprehension that both Meifen and Mister Fuhua were getting curious. She needed some cheap courage and found it in the form of her alcoholic beverage. She was getting lightheaded, but she didn't care.

"I do lots of crazy stuff," Ranma agreed, nodding towards the other two. "You should see all the crazy stuff I do."

Normally, Nabiki wouldn't worry too much. So what if Ranma felt like telling about all her crazy adventures. Ranma however was always turning to her, grinning from ear to ear. She was afraid she was going to include her in his crazy stories, and that was the last thing she wanted.

"There wouldn't be any chance we'd get back to the contracts is there?" Nabiki slurred, alcohol playing with her mind.

She wanted to curse when both ignored her and had their eyes set on a grinning Ranma. However, you don't curse on a business meeting, hence Nabiki didn't curse. She very much wanted to though.

"What sort of crazy stuff are you talking about Ranma?" asked Meifen curiously, a slight smile on her lips.

"I'm quite curious myself, if you don't mind us asking Miss Saotome." Mister Fuhua, contrary to Meifen, didn't really know what Ranma wanted to tell.

"Is no problem," Ranma began, slurring heavily. She took another sip from her drink before continuing. "Well, I had soooooo many adventures, I should be old"

Ranma picked up her spoon, and looked at herself. "But I'm sooooo young, only my face looks really weird." Ranma dropped the spoon and began laughing about the spoon distorting her face. Mister Fuhua and Meifen also joined, Nabiki wanted to stay cool, but had to stifle a giggle.

"Anyways, loads and loads of adventures, but that's all boring, nothing new, all in a day's job, day in day out, le travail, dons wanna bore you with all that." Ranma's slur was hard to understand, and her Chinese suffered, still both woman and man across her urged her to continue.

"BUT," Ranma began suddenly. "It was Nabiki here that talked about my wild side. Now, don't get me wrong." In mid sentence Ranma suddenly stopped and took another sip.

"Don't get me wrong, she also had adventures, and she's seen me being wild in them, but that's not what she means."

Nabiki suddenly realised with dread what Ranma was about to tell.

"She's talking about another wild side of me."

Ranma emptied her almost hall full glass in one go, and turned towards Nabiki. Nabiki herself turned to Ranma, who was getting red in the face, and was about to intervene, trying to make sure Ranma didn't say anything outrageous.

The moment she faced Ranma however, she felt two lush warm lips on her own. She was so taken aback by Ranma's sudden kiss that she didn't know what to do, and just let Ranma kiss her. The problem however was that she herself had been drinking quite a bit, so her drowsy mind took over first and she began to kiss the redhead back.

It took a while before her ratio could get anything in edgewise between the alcohol and above all the pleasure. So after only twenty seconds Nabiki broke the kiss. Dazed she stared at a wildly grinning Ranma. Her eyes followed Ranma seizing her drink and taking a sip. Her eyes rested on her drink when Ranma had put it back. She then drank the rest herself.

"I can't believe you did that!? _hic_." It was arguable if Nabiki was at the moment angry. She tried to sound so, but it just didn't seem to work.

"Haha, you've got the hiccup again, you always do when you drink," Ranma found the whole situation hilarious, and made that clear by laughing loudly.

Mister Fuhua in the mean time pointed at both Nabiki's and Ranma's empty drinks. He whispered something in Meifen's ears. She smiled and ordered four glasses of picon.

"I _hic_ don't hiccup when I _hic_ drink," Nabiki pouted, not sounding really convincing, not even to her.

"Yea you do"

"I do not," and as an afterthought she hiccupped.

"Sure ya do. I mean, you remember, two weeks ago when we had all that sake. You hicced the whole evening."

"I _hic_ had water down the wrong throat"

"nono, we didn't drink water. It was even more fun in bed"

"That was not fun, you made fun of me _hic_"

"Of course I did. And then you began hitting me with pillows, while hiccupping." Not able anymore to hold her laughter Ranma burst out laughing.

Nabiki indignantly watched Ranma. Something in the back of her mind there were some voices calling her to remain cool, cold and controlled. More to the front were voices telling her that she liked her drink, that Ranma was an arse, and that she didn't like him making fun of her, even more on the front was the conclusion that yes Ranma was hot, and so was she.

"So whszz if I... I _hic_ hiccups, at least I can drink more. _hic_" And as to proof her point she took another big swag from her drink, not even bothering to think where it came from.

"Suresss, but I'm cheaper."

Nabiki pondered this for a second. "So are you _hic_ when you're drunk and male."

At Ranma's surprised big eyes and splutters Nabiki couldn't help but laugh.

"You, youz just spoiled my reputation in front of thessse... thessse people." Ranma's wide eyes, and openly shocked voice showed how upset he was. The fact that she was still slurring undid the seriousness of her accusations though.

"What? _hic_ These people don't know about your reputation in bed? Or if you need to tell me something," that last part was added with a dangerous glare

"Haha, they don't know, they don't know. But if they did, and they won't, BUT if they did, my reputation would be gone." Ranma crossed her arms under her bossom, and crossly observed Nabiki. "What do you have to say for yourself!?"

"You've got a _hic_ big bosom." Nabiki was openly looking at Ranma's bosom that Ranma had pushed up while trying to look cross. Ranma also observed her bosom. Both women stared a while at Ranma's bosom.

"I've got a nice bosssssom," Ranma eventually slurred, grinning.

"Yea _hic_," Nabiki agreed, grinning madly. "Very nice."

"It's bigger than yours"

"It is not _hic_"

"It is"

"It is not_ hic_"

"It is"

"It is not_ hic_"

"It is"

"hehe_ hic_, I'm feel a bit dizzy now," Nabiki slurred, swaying a little in her chair.

"Well, my breasts are still bigger, whether you're dizzy or not"

"Who do you think has the biggest breasts?" Ranma had now turned to Meifen.

Meifen gave both women a pleasant smile before answering. "I think the two of you have wonderful bosoms."

"shee, she prefers mine."

"she didn't _hic_ say that."

"Yea she did."

"No she didn't _hic_"

"Yea she did."

"No she didn't _hic_"

"Do you know what she does drunk?" Ranma suddenly turned back to the two people on front of her.

"I have no idea, but I hope you will tell us," answered a very amused Mister Fuhua.

"She hiccups," Ranma answered dramatically, as if it was a great and terrible mystery.

"We noticed," said an also amused Meifen.

"Well, you wanna _hic _know what Ranma here does?"

"No, what do I do?" asked Ranma, turning back to Nabiki.

"He goes to the kitchen and plays with_ hic_ water."

"You know what Nabiki also does when drunk? Dance around naked with too loud music"

"Well then, do you know what Ranma does when drunk? He joins me dancing, and dances with me all over the flat... also naked"

"You also go to the strangest places to dance."

"You stop dancing at the strangest places _hic _to do something else." This made them both blush.

This continued for a while before Ranma accused Nabiki of one the more horrendous things.

"Well, you know what else Nabiki does when she's drunk? She feeds stray dogs." Ranma suddenly stopped for a moment, thinking this over. "Although that's kinda sweet of her."

"ain't it? _hic_" Nabiki slurred, grinning at Ranma.

"Yea," Ranma answered, and kissed Nabiki again. This time Nabiki didn't mind and gratefully accepted the kiss.

Somehow, it didn't take long after that before the meeting was. In fact, it was Nabiki, with Ranma in her arms, who had ended the meeting. She excused herself, said that the contracts would have to wait, and practically ran off.

* * *

"Good morning Miss Tendo and Miss Saotome. I hope you have had a wonderful good night sleep, and don't suffer too much from alcohol's after-effects. I called you to let you know I've signed the contracts and handed them over to your superior, who of course was very happy with your achievement. I look forward to our next meeting."

Dazed, Nabiki rammed the save-button.

"Message deleted"

She groaned when she realised she had pressed the wrong button, but didn't really care. She crawled back into bed, into the arms of a very handsome black-haired man who was sprawled on her bed.

It was good that the contract was signed, but if it wasn't, she didn't think she'd care. Last night was wonderful, one of many wonderful nights she had already experienced with Ranma, and one the of many yet to come.

In thoughts, she hadn't noticed Ranma opening one eye. He observed her, assured she didn't had any clothes on, and then went for the kill.

Nabiki was surprised when she felt someone kissing her she thought was still lost in dreamland, but didn't object in the least. While still liplocked, Ranma slowly guided Nabiki on the bed, and positioned himself above her.

Sleeping, as it were, was a never-ending business, and Ranma and Nabiki needed a lot of it.

* * *


	3. Bad Week

**Gold, Power, and Black Trousers**

Based on the creation of Rumiko Takahashi, Ranma 1/2

written by Riverburn

Version 1.0

* * *

Gold, Power and black trousers ... and a bit of coincidence. Ranma and Nabiki recall events that led them to their controversial, unlikely and quite uncommon bond that is not quite fluffy, but a wild clash of wills

* * *

Short story nr 2: Nabiki has a bad week, Ranma has a bad week, and both need some perspective to solve their problems.

This chapter is currently enjoying some much needed polishing.

* * *

Nabiki's week was not good, not good at all.

It all began on a Monday, the start and the worst day of the week, the day that everything preferably should go all right, but usually – through sheer frustration of the whole damn city starting to work – didn't. Nabiki's Monday was no exception.

Her newest project was closing a deal for a record company, Ixina records. Not such a big deal, it was her niche after all, the entertainment industry. What was not, however, was architecture, what was more or less what Ixina records needed. They had gotten it into their heads to move a Rolls Royce onto the fifth floor as some weird publicity stunt. No matter what they wanted, she had no idea who to contact for something like that.

Usually this meant a day without too much work since obviously someone wasn't doing their job right and had given her the assignment on the superficial fact that the client in question was a record company. This needed rectifying, and usually it took a complete day before she got a new assignment. However, this wasn't a mistake. No one with some architectural insight was free at the moment, so they had to go with the next best thing, the entertainment industry, in other words, her.

The greater part of her Monday was spent trying to figure out what they wanted, though having no clue which questions were vital, which information she could give and worst of all, which third party to contact. Tired and feeling very unproductive she had returned home.

Tuesday was usually a good day. Compared to Monday every day looked good. This Tuesday however wasn't. Not only did her boss felt her current project was too easy and gave her another one, but some client from the past week which she handled successfully claimed that the deal she closed was not in accordance with their demands. Patiently she had explained how every demand was met and that he wouldn't get a refund.

Then came the horrendous job of finding architects that felt like stuffing a big car on the fifth floor of a skyscraper. She didn't know why they needed an architect in the first place. Wasn't a moving company enough? One that had a lifter strong enough to haul up a car. The fact that it wouldn't do at all proved how much she was not qualified. Apparently, from what she could gather, they needed to partly rebuild the fifth floor.

She had contacted a few – courtesy of a very irate architectural bureau who couldn't spare five minutes to give her some useful advice besides a bunch of numbers - but of course, none of them actually did that sort of thing. They were kind enough to give some helpful numbers, but even they proved useless. After an hour of nonstop calling, she had a total of two companies that were willing to alter skyscrapers. Compare that with the usual thirty possible options she had otherwise, and it was apparent she wasn't doing well.

Wednesday was the day her colleague called in sick – light sunstroke – and she had to answer his phone. She idly wondered if he had purposefully decided to jog under a hot blazing sun, because there were many angry calls, and she had to listen to them wine about conditions and demands. Combine that with hardly any development in the architecture case, and the result is a horribly unproductive noon. Add for good measure the same pestering client from yesterday and Nabiki was ready to go postal.

On Thursday her second assignment had called to make an appointment. When she finished the phone call, she sighed and idly wondered if the week could get any worse. Clients were not supposed to contact her, she was to contact them, as soon as possible. What was even worse was that she never had made an appointment for the architectural job. So immediately she called the record company to set a date as soon as possible. Somehow she winced when soon apparently was tomorrow. The rest of the day was spent preparing a business proposal for Ixina records.

Friday was a happy day, the last day of the week if she chooses it to be. She had no problem admitting she was a workaholic, and certainly had no problem working the weekend. But not this weekend, this weekend was for eating chocolate ice-cream and watching stupid movies. At any rate, she had yet to survive this last day and it didn't look good.

The onslaught of the passing week left her troops bitter and demoralised, the ill-prepared business proposal was a five to one battle in her disadvantage, the insistent arse client a constant buzz for her already fatigued troops and the other job a reminder of a battle gone wrong. The only thing keeping her fighting was the reassurance that everything would turn out okay in the end. If not by herself then with someone else's help.

So she had started working on her second job. The client was an independent television commercial company looking for new lighting equipment. An easy job, a quick job, with reasonable demands, one she could easily prepare, if she could access the database containing all the information she required, which wasn't the case. It was no surprise she was less then polite when the appalling client began nitpicking on the place of delivery.

The afternoon was reserved for the meeting. Considering her frustration with the week, the client, the offline database, the ill-prepared application, and the meeting it was no surprise it went bad, very bad. They began telling exactly what they wanted, how they wanted it, that they wanted to make it permanent, how the floor was too small to fit the car into, what they also wanted to change without extra costs and when it should be done. She asked few questions and gave little information but promised to have a permanent business proposal ready as soon as possible.

What made it absolutely unbearable, what made her almost destroy her flat, was a man gone missing. Usually she could vent her frustration on him. He didn't really need to say anything just appear to be listening (he usually did comment, but that was good, it showed that he was listening) to her insulting the no good idiot of a client, her boss for insisting she could complete an architectural contract, the nerds who had made the database inaccessible. But Ranma wasn't here, and Ranma's mobile usually hadn't any signal in whatever backwards magical kingdom he resided.

Regardless, as soon as she came home, she fished her mobile out of her purse, threw the purse aside, and threw herself on the sofa, quick called Ranma and waited for Ranma's voicemail.

"Hey Nabs!" instead she heard Ranma, a slightly irritated and exhausted Ranma, but Ranma nonetheless.

"Hey Saotome, great timing answering your phone, I need some serious venting." As always, Nabiki didn't betray any sign of anxiousness.

"Can't it wait? I'm kinda in the middle of something"

* * *

Ranma was having a bad week, a bad week by his standards, which meant he'd been playing dice with death a couple of times. Ironically, it all started on Monday – a day apparently most disliked in the world – entering a strange secluded mountain range somewhere in the west of China. The moment he ascended the mountain it began raining. Being a woman wasn't a big deal, but climbing became harder and her backpack hung from her shoulders almost doubling in weight. Not that Ranma complained. _'Enduring'_ was a great teacher.

She did however complain when the mountain people attacked her on sight. She had never visited this place, there shouldn't be any reason for hostility. But then again, did that ever stop people? So greater part of the day she had spent escaping crazed townspeople and trying to find out why they were so hostile. Eventually she came across some old guy in the woods who told her they wanted to offer her to some evil creature demanding pretty women. The next moment Ranma lost consciousness.

Somewhere at midnight Ranma woke and found herself chained to some stone pillar in the middle of the bridge, wearing a revealing cocktail dress. It was dark, cold and her head hurt. Irritably she combed her red hair with her fingers, snapping the tight chains in the process. She warmed some water, undressed and changed genders. In need for clothes, the village was the only option. Besides, if the old man's story was true they wouldn't bother him.

They were kind of awkward with a near nude stranger entering their village at midnight but they did not attack. They even gave him a room with a comfy bed. He slept with one eye open, wary for cold water. He didn't change while he slept, but did when some heavily blushing girl tripped and spilled milk on him. The results were kind of predictable. In no time at all, the entire village was behind tripping over their feet trying to catch her. This time however she wasn't so lucky. While running away, diplomatically sticking out her tongue at them she slipped over some loose rocks and toppled down in some valley.

When she woke she was once more chained to the same stone post. She knew she was wearing again some perverted revealing outfit; however were first her hands were simply chained behind the post now she had a full body suit of chain, safe for her face and bosom. In fact, Ranma suspected the townsmen had intentionally chained profoundly under her breasts. Wonderbra couldn't hold a candle to their handiwork.

Tired and more than a little irritated at how the week was going Ranma stretched herself. The multitude of layers of chain loudly snapped and noisily fell down. She regarded the bunny suit she was currently wearing and with a groan decided to just keep it on, safe the high heels. She had learned to walk on them but even Nabiki – a professional when it came to high heels – couldn't walk here on heels.

The villagers weren't really happy when they saw Ranma once again returning carrying besides a pair of high heels a very angry scowl. Hence for the third time they assaulted Ranma. Groaning, Ranma shook her head, and decided there and then that enough was enough. An hour later Ranma successfully convinced to not only stop bothering her, but also tell her what the hell was wrong with them.

Apparently some years ago an evil magician lived in this town. He wasn't any trouble and kept to himself mostly in his big house looming over the village. However, one day he had decided he wanted to marry some girl. The girl in question turned him down. Enraged the magician cursed the village, summoning an evil spirit that would demand every full moon a pretty girl. It wasn't said however that it had to be a girl from the village. So whenever they could capture an outsider girl they did.

Ranma proposed to help, but they refused. They told her that many heroes had come before trying to defeat the creature but without any success. The monster was never amused when such a thing occurred and began destroying their village.

So Ranma found herself spending her Wednesday proving herself to the villagers. It wouldn't be the first time Ranma had to proof herself adequate, but she didn't see the point in wearing lingerie while climbing an insane steep hill with six heavy boulders attached to an iron garters belt. It wasn't a good Wednesday, but at least they were more or less convinced that she was the woman to handle all their problems.

Thursday was spent searching through the ruins of the old man's place for some trace of the demon. It was a dark, eerie and a moist place looming ominously over the village. Of course it rained, it seemed to rain all week. Finding nothing she returned to the village dirty, wet and pissed. The only other solution was waiting by the stone pillar for the monster to show up.

It did, somewhere after midnight. It was an ugly black greenish semi transparent entity that towered above Ranma and was quite strong. In fact, there didn't seem a limit to the beast's strength. Picking up boulders that had to weigh several tons was as easy as say, tearing ton-heavy boulders out of the mountain. Nothing Ranma couldn't handle, but it made things more complex, certainly since it appeared to be invulnerable. No matter how fast, hard or complex Ranma kicked the beast, it went right through it, as if it wasn't there.

This wasn't new to Ranma, he had battled spectres before and won. All it took was a little ki. After five ki blasts, a couple of ki charged kicks and punches and a dozen special ki attacks Ranma decided maybe this wouldn't work after all. Ranma reasoned that usually ethereal monsters like the one in front of him were usually insanely controlled ki manifestations. So sucking its life-force should work if the monstrosity had any sign of those that is. If Ranma had to go by his senses he'd say that the monster wasn't even there. He had tried to suck it nonetheless, without success of course.

By now the sun was rising and Ranma realised he had been fighting all night. Not that he was tired, he just usually liked to be in bed before dawn. However Ranma did feel the hours of non-stop fighting, the beast didn't seem fazed.

Hence Ranma had to come up with a plan, quick. He couldn't fight the monster forever, even his endurance ended at some point. He assumed that if the monster had no ki, but was so clearly using lots of it, there had to be some artefact powering it. So the monster had to be a manifestation of the artefact. But where was the artefact?

Ranma, convinced of his theory, began spending the greater part of Friday's morning looking for some peculiar artefact and at the same time evading the monster who had a tendency to wade through walls and scare the shit out of him at the most inopportune moments.

After a fruitless search for the greater part of the morning, Ranma began to wonder if an artefact really existed. Moreso, artefacts like that usually stood out like a blazing super-depressed Ryoga in a cloister.

By noon the monster had grown tired of Ranma and decided to attack the village. Ranma could now search in peace for the artefact, but letting the villagers get slaughtered wasn't really a solution either. So in the middle of the town Ranma once again began battling the undead apparition. The problem however was that Ranma was now feeling the strain of fighting non-stop for sixteen hours.

It has to be understood that besides cats Ranma really didn't fear much. He had been in the most dire and deadly situations and always maintained a clear-head and successfully turned the situation around. However today was the end of a very bad week, he was tired, he hadn't slept in 32 hours, and was fighting a losing battle.

It only got worse when the spectre thrust his long ugly grey middle finger at him. Ranma, fatiqued wasn't fast enough to evade it. He tried deflecting it but couldn't muster enough strength. In a last desperate attempt he charged his hands with all his ki and held the spectre's hand.

Its nails were less than an inch from his right eye. The monster pushed his hand forward, intending to skewer Ranma's brain, but with an inhuman effort Ranma succeeded in keeping the spearlike finger from spearing his head. Still, the finger remained right in front of Ranma's right eye, and Ranma's ki charged hands around its hand.

All the villagers were quiet, holding their breath, the apparition was quiet, but then it never had said a word, and Ranma was quiet, concentrating on keeping the finger from piercing his eye, and trying to find a way to get out of this lousy situation.

In this ultra deafening silence – where the merest drop of a feather could be heard - all suddenly could hear Tokyo Jihen's rendition of "Savvy Lady". Ranma groaned and more than a little embarrassed, charged his left hand with all his ki, hoping it could hold the ghoul's hand, and fished out his mobile with his right hand.

Without looking who it was, Ranma accepted the call.

"Hey Nabs!" usually he was happy to hear Nabiki, now was no such time. He was irritated, tired, weary and about to be killed.

"Hey Saotome, great timing answering your phone, I need some serious venting." Nabiki sounded pretty cool, unstressed and relaxed, but Ranma had learnt to at least pick up the more obvious signs when Nabiki wasn't any of that. The fact that she immediately began about venting was one of the obvious kind.

"Can't it wait? I'm kinda in the middle of something"

"Nooo, it cannot wait!" She finally had him, she wasn't about to let him go. Nabiki turned around in her sofa, planting a cushion under her head. She was planning to make this call long, very long.

"I mean, I'm reaaaly in the middle of something" Ranma groaned, and rolled his eyes. The terrified townspeople around him began murmuring.

"Well, then you tell whoever is taking up your time to wait a day or two."

Ranma glanced at the undead monstrosity trying to push his hand forward but failing. His face was a horrid mask of pain, suffer and anguish. Looking too long in its sickly green eyes could damage any lesser man's eyesight forever.

"I don't think he'll let me" Ranma deadpanned.

"Hand me over," Nabiki simply said, intent on explaining the jackass who was monopolizing Ranma, how much she had priority.

Ranma sighed, looked at his mobile, looked at the horrible monster, shrugged, and hold the mobile in the monster's vicinity. The monster began making horrible screeching noises that defied physics.

Ranma took over the line "I doubt it wants to talk to you," he said nonchalantly.

"He's horribly rude isn't he?" Nabiki's ears were still ringing from the horrible sound that couldn't possibly be human.

"I guess it's a matter of customs"

"Bull, you don't scream into mobile, it simply is not done. What is "it" anyway?" Nabiki was more than a bit irked. She was not used to being so casually ignored.

"An undead apparition called from the bowels of hell to punish a poor village" Ranma answered casually.

"And you, the eternal altruist, feels like solving their problem again. You probably didn't ask for compensation again I bet"

"Not really, no"

"I don't understand how you can keep endangering yourself without getting paid"

"I can probably buy up half of Shanghai after this."

"See no ..." Nabiki realised what he had said. "What did you say?" she asked shocked. As always when talking money, Nabiki began walking around.

"Yea well, you see, the old man's must've been quite rich. Enough gold there to ensure the population of a small country doesn't have to work anymore."

"Ranma, you've already got enough gold to stay your entire life at Hilton's"

"What, Nabiki dismisses money just like that?" Ranma asked genuinely nonplussed. "What's the world coming to?"

"Sarcasm doesn't become you Saotome, quit it. Besides, it doesn't change my point; you hadn't asked anything at first. What if there wasn't anything there?"

"I'd safe a lot of life's I guess"

"I still think you're crazy"

"... ar ... o..." Ranma's voice suddenly sounded very distant.

"Saotome, what's wrong, I can't hear you?"

"Just a second" Ranma sounded out of breath

Ranma threw a punch at the spectre – holding his mobile - which went right through it, but somehow it did weaken its threatening trusting finger enough so that Ranma could push it away. Ranma rolled away, got into another fighting stance, feeling strangely revitalised, and held his mobile between his shoulder and ear.

"What was that?" Nabiki didn't like it very much when people were doing other things while calling.

"Fumbling with my phone. It ain't easy defending yourself from a stinking dead beast from hell with one hand ya know." Ranma's voice sounded distant and disrupted.

"Let me guess, you're talking with the phone between your shoulders and ear." It was something that required training in Nabiki's book, Ranma didn't had that training and hence he shouldn't be doing it.

"Well yea, I could use my hands in a situation like this." Ranma deflected two strikes now that he knew how to physically avert its hits. The phone however fell on the ground.

On the other end Nabiki heard the phone falling. "Hey Saotome, that had better not be you falling down. I still need some venting."

Ranma jumped away from where the monster had almost beheaded him, dived for the mobile, and rolled away from another almost deathstrike. "What was that honey-pie?" Ranma replied eventually breathless. Nabiki could hear the shrieks from the monstrosity in between Ranma's reply.

"Honey pie, where did that came from?"

"Dunno, but the unreasonable demand for my attention while I'm more or less fighting for my life seems something like a wife might do. And honey pie sounds about right for a wife"

Ranma couldn't help but smile wickedly when he could almost hear Nabiki bristle on the other line.

"Look here Saotome, I'm not your bloody wife, and my demand is not unreasonable, I might do something rash if I don't get to vent."

"Ooh, you're going to do something rash? Are you about to eat chocolate ice cream? Or maybe throw some plastic beakers around?" Ranma's tone wasn't really mean-spirited, more like gently making fun.

Nabiki was now nervously circling her sofa. "I'll..." she stopped when she heard fighting on the other line that sounded like Ranma jumping around, and an annoyed dead creature trying to catch him.

"You there Saotome?" Nabiki couldn't help but feel some pity for the creature.

"I'm..." he stepped back, barely evading a mortal sweep, took another step back, and then somersaulted on one hand a couple of times to create some distance.

"Okay, I'm here now."

"I might do something rash if you call me honey-pie again," Nabiki stated deftly.

"Yea, what's that?" he said, while ducking, and trying to hit it with a low leg sweep charged with ki. Not surprisingly it went right through the creature.

"Let you sleep on the sofa" she finished smugly.

"Nabiki," he said breathlessly and with humour in his voice. "When I come back, you'll probably chain me to the bed and won't let me sleep for the next twenty-four hours." As an afterthought Ranma added "I won't let you sleep for the next twenty-four hours."

"Don't be so sure of that Saotome"

"What? So it's okay if I stay here a day longer or so?"

"Don't. Even. Think. About. It. Just get your ass here as soon as possible."

"To sleep on the sofa?" Ranma asked with apparent curiosity.

"You won't touch the sofa, you probably won't even have time to see it" Nabiki smiled sultry imagining all the things she'd do when Ranma'd be back. He'll probably see the sofa, but not to sleep on it.

"I think the sofa is big enough for the two of us, don't you think?"

"It is, isn't it?" Nabiki said dreamily looking at the sofa in question – already forgotten her previous frustration - imagining both their naked bodies on it, a squirming mass of arms and legs and sweat.

"I don't really mind the sofa, just make sure you're on it, preferable with as little on as possible."

"You'll get me, and the sofa, and the absence of clothes if you get here as fast as possible."

Ranma suddenly felt a sudden urge to finish the fight as soon as possible. When he was about to resume the fight he suddenly noticed everyone was staring at him. Some were drooling, some were green with envy, but most of them were just shocked. Even the green horror from the pits of hell was looking at him with new respect.

"Hey, get your minds out of the gutter will ya, I'm having a conversation here." Ranma waved at his mobile irritably. The people suddenly tried to find something else to do. Even the ghastly ghoul found his ethereal undead toenails very interesting.

"Okay, I won't call you honey-pie anymore"

"Good boy"

"Baby-doll"

"Saotome!!"

"Okay, okay, sheesh, I was just joking. You have no romantic soul you know that."

"You haven't got one as well, and we don't need one. Just stick with the name you have"

"What? You mean 'insatiable bunny on steroids'?!" Ranma began grinning. It was a very appropriate name. The people began to pay attention again. They couldn't help it really. If people around you talked sex, you just had to listen in.

Nabiki also grinned. "That's the one."

Ranma looked around and once again found the people very intent on the conversation he was having. "While I love this conversation Nabs, these people don't understand the concept of privacy." Ranma threw a baleful glare at the people around him while he said this.

"Well, maybe it's a good distraction for your newest enemy."

Ranma scratched his scalp when he saw sickening green slimes on the undead's face lightening up, as if it was blushing. "Maybe you're right."

"Maybe it is also a good idea to use the handfree set I gave you. You suck at holding the phone between your shoulders and ears."

"I think I left it in my luggage" Ranma fumbled a bit in his pockets for effect, not really hoping to find it, regardless he apparently had taken it with him. " oh... no wait, I've got it right here."

The people around Ranma frowned when they saw Ranma installing something on his right ear. He said something, but apparently didn't get the results he wanted. He talked into his mobile again.

"This stuff ain't working Nabs."

Nabiki sighed and mumbled something under her breath. "Did you set your mobile correct?"

Ranma looked at his phone and frowned. "Huh?"

Before Nabiki could reply, one of the onlookers approached Ranma – shaking his head – briskly took his phone without asking, and while shaking his head and murmuring things best left not translated for Ranma, connected the earpiece with his mobile.

"Can you hear me?" Ranma asked when the onlooker had returned the mobile and earpiece.

"Positive Saotome, I can hear you, over." Nabiki smiled, Bluetooth was a nice technology, certainly when you were a monster fighting martial artist that needed to have his hands free destroying horrible demonic undeads.

"This stuff is nice, although it still would've been better if you just waited a while; it would've taken me only half an hour top to defeat this monster here."

Suddenly the monster began making the same horrible screeching noise, as if he disagreed with that last statement. It at least got Ranma's attention, which was good because the monster began attacking him again.

"What's the problem anyway?" Nabiki said, changing the subject. "You sound pretty weary."

"Well...," Ranma began, launching a quick series of thrust followed by a bleu blazing ki charged low leg sweep, and trying for a special funnel attack uppercut that would disable any living organism but just went through this horrible abomination of nature.

"It's like this, I can't hit it. I've been trying now for an odd twenty hours, and I don't seem to have a lot of luck." Although not really in concordance with his situation, Ranma sounded peculiarly casual and light-hearted about his current predicament.

"Why don't you just suck its ki? That always worked before." Nabiki easily admitted that she knew squat about martial arts, and even less about the kind of martial arts Ranma used. But maybe her different perspective might proof helpful.

"Already tried, doesn't seem like the thing has any ki," Ranma replied wearily with a tone of someone not wanting help from somebody with no knowledge whatsoever on the subject.

"Maybe it's a different kind of ki." Nabiki realised that her remark could easily be really stupid. Ki for her was even more alien than martial arts – excepting one specific kind of Ki. The only time she saw it manifested was when Ranma did so deliberately. She had to admit that punching with light effects was pretty cool.

Ranma took two quick steps backwards to evade a possible mortal slash from its claws. "That's just stupid Nabiki." Ranma ducked, evading another slash, but did raise his arm to catch the slash, and at the exact same moment kicked the ethereal spectre with a white radiant foot against the chins "And even if it does, I still would've felt it." The sweep hit his arm, and hard. Ranma immediately jumped to safety. He had noted though that the monster's slashes were less effective when the it suffered a Ki attack.

"Only trying to help here, you never know with those undead"

"They're a nasty bunch," agreed Ranma, ducking and manoeuvring out of the spectre's way.

"Why's that stupid anyway?" Nabiki never was the one who easily agreed with not knowing something, she had to ask.

"You mind if I explain you later? Like, when I'm not about to have my soul devoured by a flesh rendering ethereal idiot," Ranma said easily.

"Idiot? Aren't you losing? But just explain, who knows, I might come up with something"

"Not in a million years," Ranma mumbled under his breath.

"Another good reason to use Bluetooth is the heavenly absence of privacy. In other words, I heard that," Nabiki cut in, in mock irritation.

Ranma sighed while leaning over backwards to evade a suddenly wild frenzy of slashes aimed at his face. "Alright, you've got different sorts of Ki. But they are like crayons. Many different colours, but you can still see them."

"Well, maybe they are indeed like colours, but maybe more like spectrum colours. The visible colours are only a small part of a complete spectrum. The rest is invisible."

Ranma grunted, shaking his head. "I doubt it."

"Well, you told me yourself that Ki doesn't have laws, that it is impossible to study it, to compare it, or to define it. You just feel and use it. Who says that it isn't possible that the abomination has some weird invisible undead ki"

"Because I'd feel it," Ranma returned between sudden deep inhales, evading absurd fast slashes. Even though the monster didn't have a wide variety of attacks, the ones it used were plenty mortal.

"Still, I think..." Nabiki wanted to underline her point,

"Alright, alright, I'll try to see if I can do anything with his invisible, non-existent, not-there ki." But got interrupted when Ranma cut in sarcastically.

"Just... Trying... To... Help...," replied Nabiki, emphasizing every word, sounding quite indignant.

"Sigh, I appreciate it, just maybe not..." Ranma evaded two huge boulders, and shattered the third, and immediately jumped over the fourth.

"Saotome? What was that? Are you there?" Nabiki asked, slightly worried.

Ranma jumped from the fourth boulder on a small hill, trying to clear away from the monster. He then noticed he had lost his earpiece. He scanned around, but couldn't locate it. He ducked under another boulder.

"Saotome, you'd better not be dead." Nabiki still hadn't vented, and she'd die of frustration if Ranma would die now.

Ranma jumped back on the small hill, hoping to find the small machine in the rubble of the. It wasn't easy since the monster kept throwing those irritating rocks at him. Nabiki didn't really appreciate when he suddenly left while fighting. Besides thinking he got defeated, she was afraid she'd forget what she wanted to tell.

He leaned left, and caught another boulder by first stopping it with his left elbow immediately followed by a left fist, that went synchronous with a right fist shattering it. In that action he saw that one of the onlookers had found his small device.

"Saotome is that you?" Nabiki ask hopefully, again pacing restlessly around her sofa. Ranma, besides money, was also a good reason to pace.

"His Bluetooth earpiece fell off, I'll try to throw it back!" She suddenly heard in dialectic Chinese.

"Thanks, that's kind of you. By the way, is he doing alright?" Nabiki answered in slightly accented studybook-Chinese. It was always wise to get a second objective opinion. Ranma always slightly understated things.

"It began with Ranma in favour, but gradually, as it began to be apparent the monster was invincible it became choice-winner. As the fight progressed we could see numerous beautiful attempts by Ranma, but to no avail. It became worse when stress, strain and fatigue agitated the young Japanese martial artist. He valiantly had tried to find a way to hurt the spectre but without luck. Though the audience still favoured the young pigtailed man, cheering had then stopped. It seemed the match would be lost in favour of the undead monstrosity, but then you called..."

"And then? What happened then?" Nabiki asked, curious how the fight was going.

Ranma was jumping from thrown rock to thrown rock on a hill, trying to reach the monster. Close to the monster, he jumped down from the rock he was standing on, leg stretched intent on kicking it. Just at the last moment Ranma's leg began to blaze with an intense bleu-white glow. As expected the leg went right through the monster, but as soon as his foot hit ground – upturning quite some dirt and rock - He punched it with a similar bleu blazing right fist, and a strangely positioned left hand. The left hand was not blazing, was not even fisted, just making a small slitted peace symbol.

Immediately as he landed the monster picked him up, and threw him away with incredible strength. With an enormous velocity Ranma was heading for hard looking rock, but screwed his body around, feet in front, just at the right moment, bouncing off the rock.

The monster began screeching and snarling, clearly hurt.

"When he got your phone call, the fight seemed to take a momentary pause. The monster was not gaining any ground anymore, and Ranma seemed to revitalise himself. A real change came when he used his Bluetooth earpiece. He suddenly became franker, and tried new ways to defeat it. Now, Ranma scored his first hit!!" the last phrase was screamed in sudden enthusiasm.

"your husband leans now on his knees, spitting in the rumble. His fatigue seemed to have mysteriously disappeared, his self-assured smile has returned, a strange confident lopsided smile that is accompanied by steel blue eyes and a taunting gesture."

Nabiki was biting on her lips in excitement. The Chinese man knew pretty well how to describe the fight in an entertaining exciting fashion. She could easily picture Ranma staring the creature down, tauntingly goading it. She was so excited in fact that she didn't correct the onlooker when he called Ranma her husband.

"Ranma is preparing a new attack apparently. His right fist is completely covered by an intense white swirling sphere much like a boxing glove. His left hand is again making that particular peace sign. Now he charges. The monster violently slashes at Ranma, but he easily ducks, and punches the monster with his right fist. But why? Doesn't he know he cannot..." Nabiki gasped at the same time the commentator gasped. Unlike him, she didn't know why, but apparently it was impressive enough that he fell silent for a couple of seconds.

After two seconds, Nabiki wanted to know what had happened. She was pretty sure Ranma had won, he always did, certainly when he had that smile, she just wanted to know how. "Hey, you still there? How did he win?"

"unbelievable," he began, obviously in awe at what had transpired "Ranma punched the ethereal apparition and much like before his fist went right through it. However, instead of redrawing he apparently channelled vast amounts of ki into his right fist. His left hand is drawn back, but its middle and ring finger in a slit. He appears to be sucking its energy."

Nabiki could hear the monster screaming on the background. She couldn't help but smile at one of Ranma's newest victories. "Hey, I appreciate the evaluation of the fight, but could you connect me back."

The onlooker took the earpiece off, and signalled Ranma. Ranma redrew his fist out of the spectre, and jumped away. He caught the earpiece when it was thrown at him, and installed it back on his ear.

"Hey Nabs," Ranma answered fast and confident. "It's almost dead; give me another couple of seconds."

Nabiki couldn't help but notice how absurdly elated Ranma sounded. Not that it was the first time, but never really this clear and high.

Ranma was full of energy. All the strain, fatigue and weariness were gone. Sucking the spectre's energy filled him with an incredible kind of life ki. He had sucked the life-force out of undeads before, and it always was a pleasant experience. But this one was something else entirely.

Filled to the brim with alien and very potent ki, he could see, feel and smell more clearly. But above all, he could see life. Undeads always needed potent life-ki to sustain its unlife. Normal men couldn't handle its prowess; Ranma could till a certain level.

Were old and weak people were blurred out of his vision, disappearing in the background. Young and vibrant people were highly contrasted and had lively and almost pulsating colours. But above all, he could see the object supporting the monster.

He jumped towards the stone post on the middle of the bridge, and flattened it with one life-ki-charged fist. A sudden burst of ki shot out of the rubble, shattering the black gem inside it. The monster faded instantly without a sound.

"That's that," Ranma said, both to himself as to Nabiki, looking at the rubble. "See, if you would've waited another ten minutes I'd have beaten him."

"You used my hint Saotome," Nabiki stated sharply, sure that he defeated the monster with her help.

"What?! Why'dja think that?"

"Well, the Chinese guy explained me what was happening, and it suspiciously looked like you were draining his ki."

Ranma snorted, and shook his head. "Well, it did remind me of something, so I guess your hint did help. But I came up with the idea and gave it a beating it'll never forget." He sounded very proud indeed, and very exhilarated.

"Sure you did Saotome, sure you did. By the way, undeads aren't exactly famous for their memory. I doubt he'll remember much of it."

Ranma grinned. Nabiki had little experience with the undead. "Nabiki, I haven't encountered anyone with a memory as good as an undead's one."

Nabiki was about to point out that zombies and the like had rotting brains and didn't seem to remember much beyond wanting to eat brains, but then remembered some of the occasions she had actually met undead.

Ranma had this particular interest in completely obliterating the factual and concrete world that she lived in. He had done a pretty good job when he first came into her life; he had finished it when he came back for round two.

Before she met Ranma, she didn't really believe in the undead. Sure, she had seen them, but ignored them, and tried to simply forget about it – it was a past life in a crazy district. Her new life was a highly competitive dog eats dog world were you fight to the death to get deals – zombies, ghosts, magic and whatnot was not part of it.

When Ranma arrived in Hong Kong he had changed most of it. Once, an undead would scare her silly, now was a monthly occurrence. Once, dragons were only seen in movies, now she had met one, named Hector, and was actually pretty disappointing. Ranma came back, and had chosen to stay, something Nabiki didn't really mind, she was even willing to take all the undeads, dragons, ghosts, satires, kitsunes, gods, demi-gods, martial arts from every possible branch, painters and so on that came with him. At first it was a little strange, but she gradually began to appreciate the novelty of it, and conversation certainly was never dull.

Hence Nabiki admitted that maybe Ranma had a point about the undead possibly having great memories. If one can discuss fashion without a none-ethereal body, then memorising things probably wasn't that hard either.

Nabiki walked to the kitchen, speakers on so that she didn't have to carry an earpiece or a mobile. "So how did you beat him?" She wondered just how much her hint had helped him.

Ranma in the meantime was being welcomed by a wildly cheering town that fell immediately dead silent when Ranma pointed to his earpiece. Taken aback by the sudden silence of an apparently very understanding town, Ranma explained.

"You told me about that Ki-force I couldn't sense, right? Well, as far as I know, there doesn't exist one I don't know about. You're actually partly right now that I think about it. You can't sense Ki, so for you it's invisible. I can easily sense it, but some types easier than others. As I said, it really ain't an exact science." Ranma walked over to some higher ground to get a better reception, shakings hands as he went by a very grateful town.

"At any rate, I thought about Ki to maintain life. That alone comes in many forms and sizes. One of those is Ki used to raise the dead. Usually I can suck that ki right out of the undead, and if not I can find whatever is disrupting me easily and destroy it. The thing was that the object sustaining this undead only provided it with life force when it had need for it. In other words, I would only start noticing the object when the spectre was attacking me, and at that time saving my skin had priority.

So I forced the creature to use its ki, by attacking it with ki, and at the same time sucking its ki. Very dangerous ki, but feels insanely good, very addictive even." Nabiki had no problem believing that. Ranma sounded like he had taken a serious dose of morphine, very clear and elated that she was beginning to feel giddy herself. Something Nabiki was not accustomed to, and was not about to start.

"Filled with its ki, I could easily spot the object, and destroyed it, destroying the monster in the process," he finished eventually, very proud about his achievement.

"And now I'm on a mountain," Ranma continued, changing the subject. "Looking at a clearing sky, trying my best to control the ki in me. Very irritating," though Ranma said 'irritating' he really didn't sound sorry at all. "characteristic that's it is VERY lively, very concentrated on life, making someone want to live life to the fullest," Ranma talked slowly, waiting till Nabiki would catch on.

She had caught on, she had when he began about trying to control the ki. It wasn't exactly the first time something like this has happened. However, she wanted to hear it from Ranma, since he could be such a prude at times. "Continue,"

Ranma groaned pitifully. He was pretty sure Nabiki knew in what state he was. "Making someone want to create life," he eventually said, pursing his lips.

Ranma sighed, and got comfortable on a rock. "Don't do this to me Nabiki," he whined.

He felt the power and might of the foreign ki invading his own life-force, making havoc of his state of mind. "It's already bad. I mean, you're probably in that sofa now, you've got a free weekend, and I bet you'd dress up really good just to spite me, and it is..." Ranma raised his voice "SO frustrating." He took a deep breath to control the heat.

"You only got yourself to blame for that," Nabiki said, making herself comfortable in her sofa, and unbuttoning the top buttons on her blouse. "It is so hot in here so I just opened some buttons on my blouse, hope you don't mind."

"Argh, stop it." Ranma was now pacing, trying his damnest best to not let the alien ki get control over him.

"Anyway," he went on, sounding flustered and still giddy. "What's your problem?"

Now Nabiki got even more comfortable. Venting was something she loved doing, and always took the time for.

"Started all on Monday, of course the Monday." Nabiki hated Mondays.

Ranma sighed. "I don't get it, why do you hate Mondays so much?" Really, he didn't get it. He could see why starting to work was not always that pleasant, but didn't you choose your work because you liked it? Shouldn't Mondays be great days?

"I've explained you hundred times before; it's the start of the workweek, the same tiresome workweek." Nabiki had explained this numerous times before, and she knew he wouldn't understand it now, and probably never will. This because she simply couldn't argue the point he always made.

"How can you say that? Besides the many different challenges you get in the form of contracts, you've got ghosts, Jinnis, Tanuki's, Tengu's, Dragons and a whole rally of other supernatural beings knocking on your door every week or so, even without my help. Worse, some are even bugging you know to get some contracts done since you've explained them what you do for a living."

"Yea, but still...," Nabiki sighed, shook her head, and decided a different tact was in order. "Regardless of what you think about Mondays, mine was pretty bad."

"How come it was so bad?" Ranma asked curiously, even thought he had a pretty good idea what would follow. A sequence of horrible mishaps, usually the fault of incompetent colleagues and jerks. Although, Ranma had to hand it to her, when she in the wrong, she admitted it – just not dwelling long on it.

"It all started with this new project I got..." Ranma hmmm'ed and listened, or at least gave the impression of listening. He wasn't ignoring her, and really tried to listen – he liked her after all, but not everything she said made sense to him.

For example, why would someone give her a job she was totally not qualified for? It didn't make sense; if she couldn't do it then don't accept it. Of course, you cannot 'refuse' in that world apparently. Refusing would cost thousands upon thousands dollars. So the company couldn't refuse, and she couldn't refuse.

This made some sense to him. A company has to work to get money, so they accepted all the work they could get. Her second problem was more complicated though. It had to do with what she was supposed to do. 'get a car on the fifth floor'? Ranma understood why she was frustrated. Heck, he'd be frustrated if someone asked him to do that. But he didn't get why someone would want it, and why someone would ask Nabiki to do it.

Shouldn't they just call a contractor or something? In a way, Nabiki was, but not the right kind. There were people who did that sort of stuff, with hoisters, scaffolds and stuff. Nabiki was not such a person. But no... Nabiki was supposed to do this.

Ranma did however get the pesky ex-client who kept insisting that the contract they had completed wasn't in fact what they agreed on. He felt almost embarrassed for the client when Nabiki summed up the excuses the client used to get some money back. It made more sense to Nabik, but Ranma really didn't get how it could matter if the stuff was delivered 15 minutes late, and 200 metres from the agreed on place – which wasn't even the case.

"Then came Wednesday, and my colleague called in sick..." by now Nabiki was getting fired up. Ranma couldn't help but notice that every time Nabiki vented, she sounded more excited and elated then really frustrated.

"Let me guess," I answered for her. "You had to mind his phone again?" he knew a little about where she worked, about the kind and generous colleagues, about her pretty decent and competent boss, and of course her pesky colleagues who got sick on the most unfortunate moment.

"Yeah, so I got called by an army of unhappy client, which wasn't all..." on and on she went, horror story after horror story, the later probably more horrifying then the last – not that Ranma knew, he just went by how excited she sounded. Talking fast and sardonically laughing was usually a number one horror story whereas a jokingly told story was usually a slight frustrated or a fault on her part.

Ranma laughed with her when she told about her stupidity by not calling her clients first, and then dryly asked her why that was such a bad thing. Although it was interrupting Nabiki's rant, she never really minded. She liked explaining things to Ranma, and it somehow was always a nice addition to her dialogue that actually was more of a monologue.

Eventually they reached the climax. Friday afternoon, an ill prepared business meeting with no information whatsoever, a promise she couldn't keep, and no good hope for the future. The climax didn't end in a happy one either.

Luckily it hadn't ended yet, just a horrible cliff-hanger. Unluckily enough, real life cliff hangers were awful.

"So why don't you ask someone else to do it?" Ranma, as Nabiki knew squat about Martial Arts, easily admitted he knew nothing about serious business.

Nabiki sighed. "I can't ask someone else to do it. How would that look?"

"I dunno, but better I guess then you botching it up" he shrugged, really not realising what all the fuss was about.

"If someone else was better suited for a fight then you'd be, would you let him fight for you?" Nabiki said, making a perfect analogy with Ranma's world.

"Of course not, but that's completely different."

"How's that?"

"First off, there is no one better suited to fight then me..." Ranma said casually, as if it was stupid to assume different.

"But presume there is." Nabiki interrupted.

"Then no, I wouldn't let him. I was challenged not..." but Ranma stopped, he saw Nabiki's point of view.

"You see?" Nabiki said; convinced Ranma understood what she meant. "Someone gave me the contract, challenge if you will. I can't back out. If you are challenged for a fashion contest, no matter how much you'd hate it, you'd still make sure you'd win."

"And I won. I still get fanmail," Ranma replied smiling happily. That had been a horrible challenge, but a brilliant victory. Who knew that clothes Did make the man.

"So I can't back out either. I need to have a business proposal ready somewhere next week. The other assignment isn't really a biggy, I can get it done as soon as the databases are up and running. But that other deal is a problem."

"I still say you should just outsource it."

"'outsource'? Where did you learn that word?" it wasn't the first time Ranma surprised Nabiki like that. He didn't always get what she said, but he did listen. It wasn't that surprising that he caught on here and there.

"Listening," Ranma simply said. "Anyway, if I'm about to lose a fight, possibly resulting in my dead, and I knew about someone who could easily defeat my challenger, I'd pass on the challenge. So really, I think you'd have to see how important this deal is for you. If a lot depends on it, just ask someone else, otherwise, count your losses and..."

"'ask someone else'... Ranma you're a genius." Nabiki said, suddenly cutting in.

"Eh... I know, but..."

"Sorry Saotome, I gotta go, need to make some phonecalls. Thanks a million. Be sure to get your tight ass here as soon as possible" and with that the phone call ended.

"What was that about?" Ranma said to no one in particular.

* * *

Putting aside the two bulging sacks of gold, Ranma walked inside their fancy flat. He threw his keys on the kitchen counter, walked over to the fridge, and drank some milk from the carton. Putting the carton back, he scanned the flat for Nabiki, but couldn't find her.

Hearing some on the phone, he walked over to her rather big office. There she was, still in her tight work outfit – black short skirt, black tights, high heeled black shoes, a white shirt and a black vest. She was smiling, full of activity, and calling.

She was so busy she hadn't noticed Ranma. Conceiling his presence, he slipped inside, and got comfortable on the sofa opposite her desk.

After only ten minutes she saw Ranma sitting. Her smiled grew larger if that was possible. She finished the call in a matter of seconds, and as fast as she could jumped on Ranma's lap, locking him in a deep yearning kiss.

When both had exchanged enough greetings, Ranma began with what was on his mind the last four days.

"So, how did you solve your problem?"

Nabiki grinned shrewdly. "You sure you want to hear Saotome? You might not understand a word I'd say".

Ranma grinned. "Don't underestimate me Nabs. I might understand more than you'd credit me for."

Nabiki smiled, gave Ranma along drawn out kiss before starting how she handled her problem.

"It isn't actually that spectacular. I don't have the contacts and addresses of the right people, and even if I had, I'm not familiar in that environment, they don't know me there. Having contacts is pretty important."

"I know that, you've pointed that out quite a few times."

"Exactly, so I had to find someone else to do my job." Nabiki said finally, smiling joyfully at her solution. Ranma also had to smile.

"Aha, so you did use my tip."

"Noooo, You said I had to hand my project over to someone else. Instead I got someone to work for me." Giddy with the way she worked around her problem, she began pacing in front of Ranma, idly opening the top buttons of her blouse.

Ranma leaned over, and smiled assuredly.

"I never said you had to hand over your project, I said you best had someone else do it." Ranma said casually.

Nabiki walked over to Ranma, squatted in front of him. Put her flats hands on Ranma's respective right and left side of his face. Gave him a short kiss on the lips, and then released him.

"Alright, I guess you did help me a bit. But you'd never guess how I managed to do this."

"No clue, how did you manage it?" Ranma really had no clue, and he knew Nabiki always wanted to share her genius with someone, preferably him. Sharing her geniality on the job was not smart, so Nabiki was more than happy to have Ranma applaud her for her cleverness. Besides, he was rather curious.

"I got a company to do it for me."

"A company... but?"

"A company I started. Nabiki Arch, one CEO, namely me, and one employee, Sato Nagasaki an expert when it comes to contracting architectural deals." Ranma had no clue why she went to such great lengths to preserve some credentials, but apparently it was really a thing.

"So, let me get this straight. You started a company to work on that project of yours? Why do something like that?"

"Well, if I'd outsource it to some other company, they'd get acknowledged. Hiring someone else was not possible, because I'm not authorized to. Doing it myself was possible, but would hurt the company more than it would do good. By creating a company myself, I keep the client myself, since I'm the CEO of this company. The only downside is that there is no credit for the company I actually work for. But Nabiki Arch can never misuse it's useless credentials, and I keep the client as person."

Ranma frowned, obviously confused. "But isn't it very expensive, and doesn't it require a lot of paperwork to start a company?"

Nabiki got comfortable next to Ranma. "It isn't free, but if the company's small, it really doesn't require a lot of paperwork, or time. It might in Japan, but we're not in Japan. Although I'm pretty proud of myself, it isn't uncommon to start a fake company, albeit not always for the same reasons."

Ranma opened his mouth to ask another question, but was answered with a mouthful of affectionate Nabiki. It soon became obvious Ranma was not to leave the sofa.

The next day, two young naked adults woke on the plush comfortable carpet in their living room. Both woke up with a silly but happy smile. Nabiki kept her smile, while Ranma got a little worried as he came around.

"Shouldn't you go to work? It's Wednesday?"

"What? Tired of me already?" Nabiki asked faux indignantly.

"No, it's just that with all that stress and work you have, I'd think you wouldn't want to miss a day."

Nabiki smiled pleasantly. "The advantages of being CEO. Sato is handling the architectural job, and I'm on schedule with the other project. Besides, you've been gone for more than a week, we've got some serious catching up to do."

* * *


End file.
